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PREFACE 



The object of this Work is the same as that of the Old 

Testament History, namely, to supply a Manual of New 
Testament History, which in fullness, accuracy, and use of 
the best sources of information, may take its place by the 
side of the Histories of Greece, Home, England, and France, 
in the present series. 

The Work consists of three parts. The First Book gives 
the connection between Old and New Testament History, 
including the relations of the Holy Land to Persia, Egypt, 
and Syria, and the narrative sets forth the main facts of 
the general history of the East during what is called the 
"Hellenistic" age. To preserve the unity of the subject, 
this part is brought down to the destruction of Jerusalem. 
The Appendix contains a full account of the national and 
religious life of each separate section of the Jewish nation 
— of the Dispersion as well as in Judaea — their Scriptures, 
worship, and sects; in short, that information respecting 
them which is necessary to understand the condition of the 
people at the advent of our Saviour, and the allusions in 
the Gospels. 

The Second Book, containing the Gospel History, is 
designed to present a clear, harmonized account of our 
Lord's Ministry, as related by the Four Evangelists, illus- 
trated by all needful collateral information, but free from 
speculative discussions. Pains have been taken to exhibit 



VI PREFACE. 

the different chronological views of the highest authori- 
ties ; and the Appendix contains a discussion of the great 
question respecting the origin of the Gospels, and a Table 
of the Gospel Harmony. 

The Third Book, embracing the Apostolic History, aims 
at a completeness not previously attained in any similar 
work. The method, in which Paley led the way, of using 
the Epistles of St. Paul, not only to supply the incidents 
omitted in the Acts, but to set the Apostle's spirit and 
character in a vivid light, has been followed throughout. 
Similar use is made of the Epistles of Peter, John, and 
James, and the section is completed by a summary of all 
that is really known, both of the other Apostles and of 
the persons associated with them in the History. The 
unity of this part is preserved by bringing it down to 
the destruction of Jerusalem ; and that catastrophe which 
closes the first book as an historic event, is now exhibited, 
in the light of our Lord's great prophecy, as the epoch 
of his coming in the full establishment of the Christian 
Church. 

The History embodies much valuable matter from the 
Dictionary of the Bible, and in particular from the Arch- 
bishop of York's articles on the life of our Saviour and 
on the Gospels, as well as from the different articles on the 
Apostles and the books of the New Testament and Apoc- 
rjrpha. 

The appearance of Mr. Le win's " Fasti Sacri " has aided the 
Editor in giving the work that chronological completeness 
which will be especially seen in the Tables. 
v Wm. Smith, 

London, November. 1866. 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK I. 

CONNECTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT HISTORIES, 
AND SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS TO THE DESTRUC 
TION OF JERUSALEM. B.C. 400-A.D. 70. 

CriAr. Page 

b.c. 400-168. I. From Nehemiah to the Persecution of An- 

tiochus Epiphanes 13 

Notes and Illustrations : 
Kings of the Greek Kingdom of Syria 32 

b.c. 168-106. II. The Maccab^an War of Independence 33 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) The Asmonsean Family 50 

(B.) Modin and the Sepulchre of the Maccabees 59 

b.c. 106-37. III. The AsMONiE an Kingdoms 61 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) The Sanhedrim..... 73 

(B.) Pedigree of the Herodian Family 75 

b.c. 37-4. IV. Herod the Great 76 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) The Herodians 93 

(B.) Temple of Herod 94 

b.c. 4-a.d. 70. V. Secular Histort of the Jews, from the 
Death of Herod to the Destruction of 

Jerusalem 97 

Notes and Illustrations : 
Governors of Syria „. 139 

APPENDIX TO BOOK I. 

Sect. 

I. The Several Branches of the Jewish People 140 

II. The Jewish Scriptures..... 151 

III. New Forms of Worship — The Synagogues 159 

IV. Sects of the Jews '.,, 164 



Vlll CONTENTS. 



BOOK II. 

THE HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST; OR THE REVELATION 
OF THE GOSPEL. 

Ohap. Page 

b.c. 5-a.d. 26. VI. Birth and Early Life op John and Jesus 177 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) Genealogy of Jesus Christ 192 

(B.) Date of the Birth of Jesus Christ 194 

(C.) Cyrenius and the Census 195 

(D.) Bethlehem 195 

(E.) Nazareth 196 

a.d. 26-27. VII. Our Saviour's Early Ministry. From th*j 
Preaching of John the Baptist to Christ's 

First Passover 198 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) The Publicans 215 

(B.) Place of our Lord's Baptism 216 

a.d. 27-28. VVII. First Year of Christ's Ministry. From his 
First Passover to his Second Visit to 

Jerusalem, probably at the Passover. 218 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) Scene of our Lord's Ministry 248 

(B.) Duration of our Lord's Ministry 249 

(C.) Galilee 251 

a.d. 28-29. IX. The Sequel of Christ's Ministry in Galilee, 

FROM AFTER HIS SECOND PASSOVER, IN A.D. 28, 

TO NEAR THE FeAST OF TABERNACLES, A.D. 29. 252 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) The Brethren of the Lord 281 

(B.) The Parables of Christ 283 

(C.) The Scene of the Transfiguration 286 

A.d. 29-30. X. The Last Six Months of Christ's Ministry. 
From the Feast of Tabernacles, a.d. 29, 
to his Fourth Passover, a.d. 30 288 

a.d. SO. XI. The Passion of our Lord. From Palm Sunday 

to Easter Eve, April 1st to April 7th, a.d. 30 302 
Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) The Mount of Olives ..,„. 337 

(B.) The Paschal Supper 341 

(C.) Crucifixion .,. . 344 

(D.) The Site of the Holy Sepulchre.... 34£ 



CONTENTS. ix 

Chap. 1'age 

A.d. 30. XII. The Resurrection and Ascension of Christ 

From Easter Day to Ascension Day, April 

8th to May 17th, a.d. 30 „. 34? 

Notes and Illustrations : 
Mr. Lewin's Scheme of the Chronology of our Lord's 
Life 358 

APPENDIX TO BOOK II. 

The Four Gospels 360 

Tahle of the Harmony of the Four Gospels 373 



BOOK III. 



HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES; OR, THE FOUNDING OF THE 
CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

fc.D. 30-37. XIII. The Church in Palestine to the Dispersion of 

the Christians from Jerusalem 377 

Notes and Illustrations : 
Simon Magus 399 

a.d. 37-40. XIV. Conversion of St. Paul 401 

Table of St. Paul's Life 424 

a.d. 40-48) XV. From after the Conversion of St. Paul to 
or 50. ) the Decree of the First Council at Jerusa- 
lem, including the First Missionary Jour- 
ney of Paul and Barnabas 

a.d. 49 or} XVI. St. Paul's Second, or Great Missionary Jour- 
fil-53 or 54^ ney, and the Entrance of the Gospel into 

Europe 457 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) The Visit of Galatians II 495 

(B.) Thessalonica 497 

a.d. 54-60. XVII. St. Paul's Third Missionary Journey ; his 
Arrest at Jerusalem, and Imprisonment at 
C^sarea 499 

*.d. 60-63. XVIII. St. Paul's First Imprisonment at Rome. From 

his Hearing before Festus to his Release 552 
Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) Laodicea 602 

(B.) The Epistle to the Ephesians, and the Lao- 
dicean Epistle mentioned in Col. iv. 16 602 



x • CONTENTS. 

Chap. P AOE 

a.d. 63-70. XIX. The Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter; 
and the Complete Establishment of the 
Church. From the Release of St. Paul to 
the Destruction of Jerusalem 607 

Notes and Illustrations : 

(A.) Hymenaeus and his Heresy 651 

(B.) Authorities for the Life of St. Paul 653 

a.d. 70 and) XX. Supplemental History of the Apostles and 
onward, j Evangelists, after the Destruction of 

Jerusalem ... „ 654 



APPENDIX I. 
THE BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

I. The Five Historical Books .•... 700 

II. The Fourteen Epistles of Paul 711 

III. The Seven Catholic or General Epistles 713 

IY. The Revelation of St. John .... 719 



APPENDIX II. 

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY, IN- 
CLUDING THE CONNECTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTA- 
MENTS. 

I. The Persian Domination 725 

II. The Hellenistic Domination 727 

III. The Maccabees and Asmonaean Kings 729 

IV. Kingdom of Herod the Great, subject to and under the protec- 

tion of Rome 734 

V. The Roman Domination — Parti. The Gospel History 741 

VI. " " Part II. The Apostolic History.... 748 

Index. 0O , 757 



GENEALOGICAL TABLES. 

The Asmonsean Family 59 

Pedigree of the Herodian Family 75 

The Family of Herod the Great 99 



LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



SEPARATE MAPS. 

Pagb 
Historical Maps To face page 93 

1. The Holy Land under the Maccabees and Herod the Great. 

2. The Holy Land under the sons of Herod the Great. 

3. The Holy Land, showing the kingdom of Agrippa I. 

4. Roman province of Judaea and the kingdom of Agrippa II. 

The Holy Land, to illustrate the New Testament 257 

St. Paul's First and Second Missionary Journeys 454 

St. Paul's Third Missionary Journey 511 

A Chart of St. Paul's Voyage to Rome 568 



MAPS INSERTED IN THE TEXT. 

Plan of Jerusalem 117 

Map of Galilee r 240 

Plan of Athens 477 

Chart of part of the Coast of Malta 573 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Jerusalem Frontispiece. 

Candlestick of the Temple Title Page 

View of the Lake of Antioch 13 

Coin of Antiochus Epiphanes 33 

Silver Coin of the Maccabees 58 

Coin of Antiochus VI 61 

Temple of Herod restored 76 

Capital of Pillar in Vestibule of the Southern Entrance of Herod's Temple 96 

Remains of Arch of Bridge of the Temple 97 

Bethlehem ■. 177 

Nazareth 198 

Sea of Galilee 218 

Sidon. , ; 252 



Xli ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Page 

Bethany 288 

Gethsemane 302 

Mount of Olives 347 

Jerusalem 377 

Tarsus 401 

Antioch 425 

Thessalonica , 457 

Ruins of the Theatre at Ephesus , 499 

Greek Imperial Coin of Ephesus and Smyrna allied 518 

Greek Imperial Copper Coin (" medallion ") of Laodicea of Phrygia... 521 

Csssarea 552 

Ancient Ship 601 

Stairs of the modern Capitol at Rome 607 

ColossflX 654 



NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. 




View of the Lake of Antiocli. 



BOOK I. 



CONNECTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT HISTO- 
RIES, AND SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS TO THE DE^ 
STRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. B.C. 400— A.D. 70. 



CHAPTER I. 



FROM NEIIEMIAH TO THE PERSECUTION OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPIT- 

anes. B.C. 400-168. 



Interval of four centuries between the Old and New Testaments — Four 
periods : — Persian, Greek, Asmonaean and Herodian. § 2. Judaea under 
the Persians — The high-priests Eliashib, Joiada, Jonathan or Joha- 
nan — Murder of Joshua. § 3. Jaddua — Close of the Old Testament Can- 
on — Alexander the Great — Rebellion of the Samaritans. § 4. OniasI. 
— Division of Alexander's Empire — Jerusalem taken by Ptolemy I. — 
Judaea subject to Egypt. § 5. Simon I. the Just — The ideal of a high- 
priest — The New Synngogue — Antigonus Socho. § 6'. Eleazar, under 



14 From Nehemiah to Antiocfius Epiphanes. Chap. 1 

Ptolemy II. Philadelphia — Version of the LXX. — Manasseh — Onias 
II. — Offends Ptolemy III. Euergetes — Joseph, son of Tobias. § 7. Si- 
mon II. — Wins of Syria and E^rypt — Ptolemy IV. Philopator profanes 
the Temple — Antiochus III. the Great — Judaea becomes subject to 
Syria. § 8. Onias III., under Seleucus IV. Philopator — Legend of He- 
liodorus — Simon, treasurer of the Temple — Accession of Antiochus IV. 
Epiphanes — Jason and Menelaus — Introduction of Hellenic customs 
— Death of Onias III. § 9. Antiochus in Egypt — Tumult at Jerusa- 
lem — Expulsion and death of Jason — Antiochus storms Jerusalem and 
profanes the Temple — Fate of Menelaus. § 10. Sack of Jerusalem by 
Apollonius — Great persecution, conducted by Athenaeus — Martyrdom 
of Eleazar and of the Seven Brethren — Death of Antiochus Epiphanes. 
§ 11. Silence of the heathen historians on this period of Jewish his- 
tory — Allusion to it by Tacitus. § 12. State of the Jewish nation, 
religious, political, and social — The antagonism of princes and priests 
— Of Hellenism and patriotism. 

§ 1. The interval of four centuries, from the close of the 
records of the Old Covenant to the events which heralded 
the birth of Jesus Christ, may be divided into four periods : — 
the continuance of the Persian dominion, till b.c. 331 ; the 
Greek empire in Asia, b.c. 331-167; the independence of 
Judaea under the Asmonaean princes, b.c. 167-63; and the 
rule of the house of Herod, commencing in b.c. 40, and ex- 
tending beyond the Christian era to the destruction of Jeru- 
salem in a.d. 70. The last two periods also include the rela- 
tions of Judaea to Rome. There is little that possesses any 
great intrinsic interest, except the struggle of the Maccabees 
for religion and liberty against Antiochus Epiphanes ; but 
the whole period demands our notice as a preparation for un- 
derstanding the state in which we find the Jews at the open- 
ing of the New Testament, their moral and j^olitical condi- 
tion, their views and opinions, their sects and parties. 

§ 2. The first two of these periods — a space just equal to 
that from the death of Elizabeth to the accession of Victoria 
— form almost a blank in the history of the Jews. They 
seem to have been content to develop their internal resources 
and their religious institutions under the mild government of 
Persia. We can not decide how far the princes of Judah re- 
tained any remnant of their patriarchal authority ; but from 
the time of Nehemiah the High-Priest became the most im- 
portant person in the state; and the internal government 
grew more and more of a hierarchy. In the genealogies of 
the period, the Levites were recorded as the chief of the 
fathers. The high-priests from the time of Nehemiah to the 
end of the empire under Darius Codomannus were Eliashibj 
Joiada, Jonathan (or Johanan), and Jaddua. 1 
1 Neh. xii. 22. 



B.C. 332. Jaddua and Alexander . 15 

Eliashib, the high-priest in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, 
was succeeded by his son Joiada, 2 and he by his son Jo:na« 
than or Johanan (John), down to whose time the heads oi 
the tribe of Levi were entered in the Chronicles of Judaic 
which seem therefore to have ended with his priesthood. 3 

The high-priesthood of Jonathan, w T hich lasted thirty-two 
years, chiefly in the long reign of Artaxerxes II. Mnemon 
(b.c. 405-359), was stained by the first of those acts of mur- 
derous rivalry, which afterward brought the state to anarchy. 
His brother, Joshua (Jesus), who was suspected of aiming at 
the high-priesthood by the favor of Bagoses the Persian 
satrap, was slain by Jonathan in the temple. The satrap 
punished the murder by a tax of fifty shekels on every lamb 
offered in sacrifice, and polluted the temple by his presence. 4 
But even i : n so doing, the Persian taught the Jews the much- 
needed lesson afterward enforced by a far higher authority : 
"Am not I purer," he said, "than the dead body of him 
whom ye have slain in the temple ?" 

This crime forms the only memorable event in the annals 
of Judasa, from the government of Nehemiah to the Macedo- 
nian conquest, if we except a doubtful account that the 
country w T as chastised, and a number of Jews carried captive 
to Babylon, for their alleged participation in the revolt of 
the Sidonians under Artaxerxes Ochus (b.c. 351). 

§ 3. Jaddua, the son and successor of Jonathan, is the 
last of the high-priests mentioned in the Old Testament ; and 
his is the latest name in the Old Testament, with the doubt- 
ful exception of a few in the genealogies prefixed to the 
Chronicles. Its insertion in the Book of Nehemiah is a guide 
to the time when the Canon of the Old Testament Avas finally 
closed. 5 

Eusebius assigns twenty years to the pontificate of Jaddua, 
who was high-priest both under Darius Codomannus (b.c. 
336-331) and after the fall of the Persian empire. Josephus 
tells a romantic story of an interview between Jaddua and 



2 Neh. xii. 10, xiii. 28. The title 

'the high -priest," in the second 

passage, may refer either to Eliashib 

or Joiada ; if to the latter, he became 

high-priest in the time of Nehemiah. 



Appendix to Book III., § 4, notes, 
etc. 

3 Nch. xii. 1 1, 22, 23. "The sons 
of Levi, the chief of the fathers, 
were written in the book of the 



It was one of his sons that married Chronicles, even unto the days of 

tt\e daughter of Sanballat the Horo- j Johanan, the son of Eliashib." 

nite {Ocd Testament Hist. ch. xxvi). ! 4 About B.C. 366. Joseph. Ant. xi. 

A complete list of the high-priests j 7, § 1 . 

.iZd the contemporary civil rulers is ; 5 Neh. xii. 11, 22. "The Levites, 

given in the Old Testament History, \ in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, Jo- 



16 



From Nehemiah to Antiochus Epiphanes. Chap. 1. 



Alexander the Great. 6 While Alexander was besieging Tyre, 
he sent to demand the submission of the Jews, who answered 
that they were the faithful vassals of Darius (b.c. 332.) After 
taking Gaza, Alexander marched against Jerusalem. Jad- 
dua, by the command of God in a vision, hung the city 
with garlands, and went forth in solemn procession to meet 
the conqueror at Sapha (the ivatch), an eminence in full 
sight of the city and the temple. On seeing the high-priest 
in his state robes, the priests in their sacred dresses, and 
the people clothed in white, Alexander fell prostrate in 
adoration, and rising, embraced the high-priest. To the 
remonstrances of Parmenio he replied that he worshiped, 
not the priest, but the Name engraved upon his frontlet, 
and that he recognized in him a figure that had appeared 
to him in a vision in Macedonia, and bidden him to con- 
quer Persia. Entering Jerusalem, he offered sacrifice, and 
was shown the prophecies of Daniel relating to himself. 
He granted the Jews, not only in Judaea, but also in Media 
and Babylonia, the free enjoyment of their own laws, and 
exemption from tribute during the Sabbatic year. 7 The 
story is discredited by the best critics, on account of its in- 
ternal improbabilities, approaching to contradictions, and the 
silence of the historians of Alexander. 8 The statement of 
Justin, 9 that on Alexander's advance into Syria he was met 
by many Eastern princes with their diadems, affords some 
confirmation to the story of the high-priest's coming out to 
meet him in person. It is certain that Jerusalem and Judaea 
submitted to the conqueror, and there are traces subsequent- 
ly of the privileges he is said to have granted to the Jews. 
Alexander's homage to Jehovah, and his pleasure at being 
named as the instrument of destiny, are points thoroughly 
consistent with his character. There is nothing improbable 
in his having received the submission of Judaea from the 
high-priest and princes about the time of the siege of Gaza. 



hanan, and Jaddua, were recorded 
chief of the fathers ; also the priests, 
to the reign of Darius the Persian," 
where the epithet has been thought 
to suggest that the passage was writ- 
ten after the fall of the Persian em- 
pire. If, as is now generally admit- 
ted, the passage in 1 Chr. iii. 22-24 
is spurious, the name of Jaddua is 
the last mentioned in the Old Testa- 
ment Canon. 

c Respecting the apostasy of Ma- 



nasseh, whom Josephus places in the 
time of Darius and Alexander, and 
makes the first priest of the schis- 
matic temple on Mount Gerizim, see 
Old Testament History, chap, xxvii. 
§10. 

7 Joseph. Ant. xi. 8, the Talmud, 
and later Jewish writers. 

8 Arrian (iii. 1) expressly says thai 
Alexander marched from Gaza to 
Pelnsium in seven days. 

9 Hist xi. 10. 



B.C. 332 



Influence of Alexander. 



17 



At all events, Jerusalem was too important to have been 
passed over by Alexander himself, as it is by the historians. 10 
He enlisted JeAvish soldiers, and removed a large number of 
Jews to Egyj)t, to aid in peopling his new city 01 Alexan- 
dria. 11 

The Samaritans are said to have claimed the same privi- 
leges as the Jews, which Alexander refused to grant. Hence 
probably arose the rebellion in which they murdered the 
Macedonian governor, Andromachus, and which Alexander 
punished by the destruction of Samaria. 12 Palestine thence- 
forth remained quiet under Alexander, who died in b.c. 323. 

The Macedonian conqueror must not, however, be dismiss- 
ed without some further notice of his real place in Jewish 
history, and in the sacred history of the world — a place not 
de]3endent on any incidental circumstances, such as his visit 
to Jerusalem. 

In the prophetic visions of Daniel the influence of Alexander 
is necessarily combined with that of his successors. They rep- 
resented the several phases of his character ; and to the Jews 
nationally the policy of the Syrian kings was of greater impor- 
tance than the original conquest of Asia. But some traits of 
" the first mighty king" 13 are given with vigorous distinctness. 
The emblem by which he is typified 14 suggests the notions of 
strength and speed; and the universal extent' and marvelous 
rapidity of his conquests are brought forward as the charac- 
teristics of his power, which was directed by the strongest 
personal impetuosity. 15 He "ruled with great dominion, and 
did according to his will ; and there was none that could de- 
liver . . . out of his hand." 1G 

The tradition of his visit to Jerusalem, whether true or false 
to fact, presents an aspect of Alexander's character which has 
been frequently lost sight of by his recent biographers. He 
was not simply a Greek, nor must he be judged by a Greek 
standard. The Orientalism, which was a scandal to his follow- 
ers, was a necessary deduction from his principles, and not the 
result of caprice or vanity. He approached the idea of a uni- 



10 This silence must not be over- 
estimated. The neglect of the Mac- 
cabaean war by the historians of the 
Greek kingdom of Syria, is an indi- 
cation already of that somewhat af- 
fected contempt which at a later pe- 
riod was expressed by Tacitus (Hist. 
v. 8). 

11 Hecat. ap. Joseph, c. Apion. i. 22. 



12 Curt. iv. 8, 10. Andromachus 
was burned alive at Samaria, 

13 Dan. viii. 21, xi. 3. 

14 A he-goat, from the Hebr. " tsa- 
phar," he leapt. 

15 Dan. viii. 5. "From the west 
on the face of the whole earth . . . 
he touched not the ground." Dan. 
viii. 6. "In the fury of his power/ 

10 Dan, viii. 7, xi. 3. 



18 From Nehemiah to Antiochus JEJpzphanes. Chap, t 

versal monarchy from the side of Greece, but his final object 
was to establish something higher than the paramount su- 
premacy of one people. His purpose was to combine and 
equalize — not to annihilate : to wed the East and West in a 
just union — not to enslave Asia to Greece. The time, indeed, 
was not yet come when this was possible ; but if he could not 
accomplish the great issue, he prepared the way for its ac« 
complishment. 

The first and most direct consequence of the policy of Alex- 
ander was the weakening of nationalities, the first condition 
necessary for the dissolution of the old religions. The swift 
course of his victories, the constant incorporation of foreign 
elements in his armies, the fierce wars and changing fortunes 
of his successors, broke down -the barriers by which kingdom 
had been separated from kingdom, and opened the road for 
larger conceptions of life and faith than had hitherto been 
possible. The contact of the East and West brought out 
into practical forms thoughts and feelings which had been 
confined to the schools. Paganism was deprived of life as 
soon as it was transplanted beyond the narrow limits in which 
it took its shape. The spread of commerce followed the prog 
ress of arms ; and the Greek language and literature vindi- 
cated their claim to be considered the most perfect expression 
of human thought by becoming practically universal. 

The Jews were at once most exposed to the powerful in- 
fluences thus brought to bear upon the East, and most able to 
support them. In the arrangement of the Greek conquests, 
which followed the battle of Ipsus b.c. 301, Judaea was made 
the frontier land of the rival empires of Syria and Egypt ; and 
though it was necessarily subjected to the constant vicissitudes 
of war, it was able to make advantageous terms with the 
state to which it owed allegiance, from the important advan 
tages which it offered for attack or defense. Internally also 
the people Avere prepared to withstand the effects of the revo- 
lution which the Greek dominion effected. The constitution 
of Ezra had obtained its full development. A powerful hie- 
rarchy had succeeded in substituting the idea of a church for 
that of a state, and the Jew was now able to wander over the 
world and yet remain faithful to the God of his fathers. The 
same constitutional change had strengthened the intellectual 
and religious position of the people. A rigid fence of ritualism 
protected the course of common life from the license of Greek 
manners ; and the great doctrine of the unity of God, which 
was now seen to be the divine centre of their system, counter- 
acted the attractions of a philosophic pantheism. Througl] 



B.C. 332 Influence of Alexander, 19 

a long course of discipline, in which they had been left un- 
guided by prophetic teaching, the Jews had realized the nature 
of their mission to the world, and were waiting for the means 
of fulfilling it. The conquest of Alexander furnished them 
with the occasion and the power. But at the same time the » 
example of Greece fostered personal as well as popular inde-| 
pendence. Judaism was speedily divided into sects, analogous f 
to the typical forms of Greek philosophy. But even the rude 
analysis of the old faith was productive of good. The free- 
dom of Greece was no less instrumental in forming the Jews 
for their final work than the contemplative spirit of Persia, 
or the civil organization of Rome ; for if the career of Alex- 
ander was rapid, its effects were lasting. The city which he- 
chose to bear his name perpetuated in after ages the office 
which he providentially discharged for Judaism and mankind ; 
and the historian of Christianity must confirm the judgment 
of Arrian, that Alexander, " who was like no other man, could 
not have been given to the world without the special design 
of Providence." And Alexander himself appreciated this de- 
sign better even than his great teacher ; for it is said 17 that 
when Aristotle urged him to treat the Greeks as freemen and 
the Orientals as slaves, he found the true answer to this coun- 
sel in the recognition of his divine mission to unite and recon- 
cile the world. 

§ 4. Jaddua was succeeded, some time before the death of 
Alexander, by his son Onias I., who was high-priest from 
about b.c. 330 to b.c. 309, or, according to Eusebius, b.c. 300. 
In the division of the empire of Alexander, Palestine was 
treated, as it had always been considered by the Greeks, as a 
part of Syria ; and so it fell to the lot of Laomedon, who Avas 
dispossessed, in b.c. 321-320, by Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, 
the powerful satrap of Egypt. Ptolemy took Jerusalem by 
assaulting it on the Sabbath, when the Jews would offer no 
resistance. 18 He carried off a large number 19 of Jewish and 
Samaritan captives to Alexandria, where he gave them the full 
citizenship ; and many others migrated to Egypt of their own 
accord. In the wars that followed, Palestine was alternately 
the prize of victory to Antigonus and Ptolemy, till the peace 
which followed the battle of Ipsus assigned it to Ptolemy, with 
Phoenicia and Ccelesyria, as a dependency of the kingdom of 
Egypt, b.c. 301. It was subject to the first five Ptolemies for 
about a century b.c 301-198. The sufferings inflicted upon 

"Plutarch, deAkx. Or. 1,§ 6. I 19 Aristcas says 100,000. There 
18 Joseph, r. Ap. i. 22 ; Ant. xii. 1. ! seems to be a confusion between this 



20 



From Nehemiah to Antiochus Epiphanes. Chap, i 



Palestine and Phoenicia by the wars of the Diadochi (as the 
successors of Alexander were called in Greek) were almost con- 
fined to the maritime regions, Avhere the strong cities, such as 
Gaza, Joppa, and Tyre, were the chief objects of contention. 
As in the old wars between Assyria and Egypt, Jerusalem lay 
out of the direct track of the combatants. 

§ 5. Just after the battle of Ipsus, the high-priesthood pass- 
ed to Simon I. the Just, son of Onias I. (about b.c. 300-292), 
Jewish tradition makes him the greatest, of this later line of 
priests. In the magnificent eulogy of Jesus the son of Sirach, 
Simon is said to have fortified the temple, doubling the height 
of the wall, and to have maintained the divine service in the 
highest splendor. "When he put on the robe of honor, and 
was clothed with the perfection of glory, when he went up to 
the holy altar, he made the garment of holiness honorable." 20 
Other traditions make Simon the last survivor of the Great 
Synagogue of 1 20, 21 who returned with Ezra from the Baby- 
lonish Captivity, and ascribe to him the final completion of 
their great work, the Canon of the Old Testament. They 
were succeeded by the New Synagogue, whose office was to 
interpret the Scriptures thus completed. Its founder was 
Antigonus Soclio, the first writer of the Mishna. He is said to 
have received from Simon the Just the body of oral tradition 
handed down from Moses. To him also is ascribed the doc- 
trine, that God ought to be served disinterestedly, and not for 
the sake of reward ; which was perverted by one of his disci- 
ples into the denial of all future rewards and punishments. 
That disciple was Zadok (or Sadduc), founder of the Saclclucees. 
But the tradition rests on insufficient evidence, and the etymol- 
ogy is extremely doubtful. 22 

The fondness with which Jewish tradition regarded the 
priesthood of Simon, as the best period of the restored theoc- 
racy, is indicated by the prodigies which were said to have 
heralded impending disaster at its close. "The sacrifices, 
which were always favorably accepted during his life, at his 
death became uncertain or unfavorable. The scape-goat, which 



statement and that of the 100,000 
Jews whom Alexander is said to have 
settled at Alexandria. 

20 Ecclesiasticus 1. The whole pas- 
sage gives a strong impression of 
the order and purity of divine wor- 
ship at this period. Dean Milman 
well calls it "the ideal of the pomp 
and majesty of a high-priest." The 
Talmudists pronounce high culogi- 



ums on a "Simon the Just" (Si- 
mon ha Zaddick), without specifying 
whether they mean Simon I. or Si- 
mon II. In fact the characteristics 
of both seem to be blended in their 
description. 

21 See Old Testament History, ch. 
xxvii., Notes and Illust. (B.) 

22 See Appendix to Book I. On 
the Sects of the Jews. 



B.C. 300. 



Simon Hie Just. 21 



used to be thrown from a rock, and to be dashed immediately 
to pieces, escaped (a fearful omen) into the desert. The great 
west light of the golden chandelier no longer burned with 
a steady flame — sometimes it was extinguished. The sacrifi- 
oial fire languished; the sacrificial bread failed, so as not to 
suffice, as formerly, for the whole priesthood." (Milman.) 

§ 6. Simon the Just ivas succeeded by his brother Eleazae, 
his son Onias being under age (b.c. 292-251). 23 His long rule 
seems to have been profoundly tranquil, under the mild gov- 
ernments of Ptolemy I. Soter (the son of Lagus), and Ptolem^* 
II. Philadelphia, who succeeded his father in b.c. 285 and 
reigned till b.c. 247. 

To this king's literary tastes, and to the co-operation of Elea- 
zar, the tradition preserved by Aristeas ascribes the Greek 
Version of the Jewish Scriptures, which is called the Septit- 
agint, from its seventy or seventy-two translators. 24 Much 
as there is erroneous and even fabulous in the tradition, there 
can be no doubt that the first portion of the translation was 
executed at this time by learned Jews at Alexandria. The 
work marks an important epoch in JeAvish history ; not merely 
the embodiment of the sacred writings in a form in which 
they might act upon the Gentile world, but, conversely, the 
growing strength of those influences which are denoted by the 
general name of Hellenism. The conquests of Alexander, and 
the kingdoms founded by his successors in Asia Minor, Syria, 
and Egypt, had led to a most powerful infusion of Greek pop- 
ulation, manners, literature, art, and religion throughout West- 
ern Asia, and Greek was rapidly becoming a universal language 
in that region. The Jews of Egypt, whose numbers, from the 
successive migrations we have noticed, were now very large, 
had doubtless become so far hellenizecl, that a Greek version 
of the Scriptures may have been as much needed for their use 
as for Ptolemy's curiosity. Thus it happened, in the Divine 
Providence, that the growth of Oriental Hellenism prepared 
the way for the spread of Christianity, not only by imbuing 
half the world with a common civilization and a common lan- 
guage, but by providing hi that language the sacred standard 
of divine truth, by which the Messiah's claims were to be es- 
tablished, and the words of which he was to fulfill. But mean- 
while that same Hellenism brought upon the Jews a new series 
of national trials. The Jews of Palestine appear to have been 

23 Manasseh. the brother of Elea- I 2i Joseph. Ant. xii. 2. See Appen* 
zar, was associated with him in the clix to Book I. 
priesthood, and held it after him till 
e.g. 240. * 



22 . From Nehemiah to Antiochus Epiphanes. Chap. I. 

thus far singularly free from hellenizing tendencies ; but the 
time soon came when their exemption was no longer preserved. 

After the successive rules of his uncles Eleazar and Manas- 
seh, Ojsias II. at length entered on the high-priesthood in b.c. 
2.40. He endangered the long friendship with Egypt by neg- 
lecting to pay the annual tribute of twenty talents to Ptolemy 
III. Euergetes, who had succeeded his father in b.c. 24 V. The 
high-priest's unseasonable avarice led to the first interruption 
of that kindly policy which the first three Ptolemies had uni- 
formly preserved toward Judcea, and he was too indolent to 
obey the summons to answer for his conduct, under the threat 
of invasion. An open rupture was only averted by the policy 
of the high-priest's nephew, Joseph, the son of Tobias, who 
forms as great a contrast to his uncle, as Antipater and Herod 
afterward did to the imbecile Hyrcanus. Joseph borrowed 
the money for his journey from some rich Samaritans, and 
traveled to Alexandria in the company of certain Phoenician 
merchants, from whom he learned the sum they intended to bid 
for the farming of the tribute of Palestine, Phoenicia, and 
Coelesyria. Having succeeded in appeasing Ptolemy by rep- 
resenting the weakness of Onias, Joseph offered to double the 
sum of 8000 talents, at which the merchants proposed to farm 
the revenues ; and, when asked for his sureties, named the king 
and queen themselves, secure in the progress he had made in 
the royal favor. 25 He obtained the contract. By a few severe 
examples, as at Ascalon and Scythopolis, he succeeded in dis- 
charging his office, and in establishing a civil authority side 
by side with that of the high-priest. His rule lasted for 
twenty-two years, and the power which he had set up in the 
state became a source of evils as great as the danger from 
which he had delivered it. 

§ 1. Onias II. died in b.c. 226, and was succeeded by his son 
Simon II. ; and four years later the crown of Egypt passed to 
Ptolemy IV. Philopator (b.c. 222-205). Meanwhile the ri- 
val kingdom of the SeleucidaB, in Syria, had reached the climax 
of its power, and the throne had just been ascended by the 
most ambitious of its kings, Antiochus III. the Great (b.c. 
223-187). He made war on Ptolemy for the provinces of 
Phoenicia, Coelesyria, and Palestine ; but was defeated at the 
battle of Raphia, near Gaza, b.c 217. After this victory, Ptol- 
emy went to Jerusalem ; and, not content with offering sacri- 
fices, he entered the Holy of Holies, whence he is said to have 

^ It is recorded, as a proof of the good-will of Ptolemy Euergetes to tht$ 
.;ews, that he offered sacrifices at Jerusalem. 



B.C. 240. Onias II and Simon II 23 

been driven out by a supernatural terror. He gave vent to 
his resentment by a cruel persecution of the Jews at Alexan- 
dria, the first example of such a measure for nearly 200 years. 
Its consequence was the alienation of the Jews both of Pales- 
tine and Egypt. 

The death of Ptolemy Philopator, when his son Ptolemy 
V. Epiphaxes 20 (b.c. 205-181) was only five years old, gave a 
new opening to the ambition of Antiochus the Great. That 
king, who had been occupied for the last twelve years in sub= 
duing a revolt in Asia Minor and attempting in vain to recov- 
er the provinces beyond the Tigris from the Parthians and 
Bactrians, formed a league Avith Philip V. of Macedox, for 
the partition of Ptolemy's dominions. After a fierce contest, 
in which Judaea suffered severely, Antiochus became master 
of Ccelesyria and Palestine (b.c. 198) The Jews, who had 
again been ill-treated by Scopas, the general of Ptolemy, wel- 
comed Antiochus as a deliverer. He granted them an annual 
sum for the sacrifices, and forbade foreigners to enter the tem- 
ple. 

§ 8. In the same year, Simon II. was succeeded in the high- 
priesthood by his son Oxias III. (b.c. 198-171). Theconquered 
provinces were restored to Ptolemy Epiphanes as the dowry 
of his bride, Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus ; but the 
Syrian king did not give up their possession ; and he resumed 
them altogether by the treaty with Rome in b.c. 188. He 
lost his life in the following year. It is under his son and suc- 
cessor, Seleucus IV. Philopator (b.c. 187-175), that the 
writer of the Second Book of Maccabees places the attempt of 
Heliodorus to seize the treasures of the temple, and his mirac- 
ulous repulse. 27 The story, of which Josephus knows noth- 
ing, illustrates the tendency of apocryphal writers to adorn 
their books with feeble imitations of the miracles recorded in 
the Scriptures. All we know for certain is, that Onias could 
scarcely maintain his favor with Seleucus against the machi- 
nations of Simon, the treasurer of the temple, who is said to 
have instigated the sacrilege ; and the bloody feud thus com- 
menced between the partisans of the high-priest and those of 
Simon hastened the calamities that followed the transfer of 
the supremacy to Syria. 28 

The accession of Axtiochus IV. Epiphaxes (b.c. 175-164) 

20 This is the king whose coronation j 28 Simon is called a Benjamite. 
decree, inscribed on the " Rosetta i Upon the difficulties respecting the 
Stone," has afforded the foundation family to which he belonged, and 
for the art of deciphering the Egyp- \ the exact nature of his office, see 
tian hieroglyphics. "" 2 Mace. in. ' Diet, of Bible, vol. iii. p. 1319, etc. 



24 



From Nehemiah to Antiochus Epiphanes. Chap. 1 



secured the triumph of the Syrian party in Judrea. This prince, 
whose conduct, as well as his end, gained him the nickname of 
JEJpimanes (the madman) had been sent by his father, Antiochus 
the Great, as a hostage to Rome. He returned with a con- 
tempt for his subjects added to that love of oriental luxury 
which the kings of Syria had now acquired ; but his vices 
might have been chiefly dangerous to himself had not his Ro- 
man education inflamed the ambition which he inherited from 
his father. He found the Jewish high-priest at Antioch, 
whither Onias had gone to clear himself from the accusations 
of Simon, which were backed by the hostility of Apollonius, 
the governor of Coelesyria. The Greek party were represent- 
ed, not only by Simon, but by the high-priest's own brother, 
Joshua (Jesus), who went so far as to adopt the Greek name 
of Jason. By an enormous bribe in money and promises of an- 
nual tribute, J as on (b.c. 1 75-1 72) obtained the high-priesthood, 
while Onias III. was deposed, and detained at Antioch. 29 For 
the first time, Greek customs were openly introduced into Ju- 
dtea, with a success which shows to what an extent the Jews 
had already become hellenized in spirit. Not content with 
surrendering the privileges of free worship obtained from for- 
mer kings, 30 and neglecting the services of the temple, Jason 
built a gymnasium, where the Jewish youth practiced the 
Greek athletic exercises, some of them even obliterating the 
mark of circumcision. 31 Jason also sent representatives to the 
quinquennial games of the Tyrian Hercules, with large pres- 
ents, which even his envoys scrupled to apply to the heathen 
sacrifices, but bestowed them for building ships. 32 

In three years, however, Jason was in his turn undermined 
by Menelaus (b.c. 172-168), 33 whom he had sent to Antioch 
with the tribute, and who obtained the high-priesthood by flat- 
tering the king's vanity and offering a higher bribe. He ar- 
rived at Jerusalem, " having the fury of a cruel tyrant and the 
rage of a wild beast," while Jason fled to the Ammonites. 34 
Unable to raise the money he had promised, Menelaus was 
summoned to Antioch. He sold some of the vessels of the 



29 2 Mace. iv. 1-9. 

30 It appears from 2 Mace. iv. 11, 
that these privileges had been re- 
cently ratified through the agency 
of John, the father of Eupolemus, 
whom Judas Maccabseus afterward 
sent as an envo T to Rome. 

31 I Mace. '.' 10-15 ; 2 Mace. iv. 
10-17. 

' M 2 Mace. iv. 18-20. 



33 According to Josephus, this was 
a younger brother of Onias III and 
Jason, who had changed his own 
name, Onias, to Menelaus (Ant. xii. 
5, § 1) ; but in 2 Mace. iv. 23, he is 
made the brother of Simon the Ben- 
jamite. If so, his usurpation car- 
ried the high-priesthood out of the 
house of Aaron. 

34 2 Mace. iv. 23-26- 



B.C. 172. Jason and Menelaus. 25 

temple to the Tynans, in order to bribe Andronicns, who gov- 
erned Antioch during the king's absence in Cilicia. The de- 
posed high-priest, Onias, who was still at Antioch, charged 
Menelaus with the sacrilege, and fled for sanctuary to the sa- 
cred grove of Daphne. At the instigation of Menelaus, An- 
dronicus enticed Onias from the sanctuary and put him to 
death (b.c. 171). Antiochus, who returned about this time, 
was moved to pity by the blameless character of Onias ; and ? 
perceiving doubtless the treasonable schemes of Andronicus, 
he put the murderer to death. Meanwhile a great tumult had 
broken out at Jerusalem, in consequence of the sacrileges com- 
mitted by Lysimachus, the brother and deputy of Menelaus. 
Lysimachus was killed, and Menelaus was accused before An- 
tiochus, when he reached Tyre on his way to attack Egypt ; 
but Menelaus escaped through bribery, and his accusers were 
punished for the insurrection. 35 

§ 9. We must here glance at the relations of Syria toward 
Egypt. Ptolemy VI. Philometor was an infant when he 
succeeded his father in b.c. 181 ; but the government was ably 
conducted by his mother Cleopatra, the sister of Antiochus 
Epiphanes. Her death (b.c. 173) led to a war with Syria, and 
Antiochus successfully conducted four campaigns against 
Egypt (b.c. 171-168), from which he only retired on the haugh- 
ty mandate of the Roman ambassador, M. Popillius Laenas. 
During the second of these campaigns (b.c. 170), a report was 
spread of the king's death. Jason attacked Jerusalem at the 
head of 1000 men, and drove Menelaus into the citadel; but, 
after great cruelties against the citizens, he was compelled to 
fly to the land of Amnion. Thence he fled to Egypt, and after- 
ward to Sparta, where he sought protection on some claim of 
kindred, and there he " perished in a strange land." 36 Mean- 
while his attempt had the most extraordinary consequences in 
the history of the Jews. 

Antiochus was led to believe that Judsea had revolted, an 
idea no doubt encouraged by Menelaus, in order to get rid of his 
own enemies. The king returned from Egypt in a state of fury ; 
took Jerusalem by storm, slaying young and old, women and 
maidens. Forty thousand fell in the conflict, and as many were 
sold into slavery. Guided by Menelaus, he entered the tem- 
ple, profaned the altar by the sacrifice of a swine, and having 
caused part of its flesh to be boiled, he sprinkled the broth 

36 2 Mace. iv. 28-50. Itans is alluded to in 1 Mace. xii. 7 

36 2 Mace. v. 5-10. The alleged [The story of the Spartan embassy is 
kindred between the Jews and Spar- 'supported by no other "authority. 

B 



26 From Nehemiah to Antiochus Ejpiphanes. Chap. I, 

over the whole sanctuary, and polluted the Holy of Holies with 
filth. He carried off the sacred vessels and other treasures, to 
the amount of 1800 talents, and returned to Antioch, leaving a 
savage Phrygian, named Philip, as his governor at Jerusalem, 
and Andronicus at Gerizim, where the Samaritan temple seems 
to have been profaned in like manner. 37 Menelaus, who is stig- 
matized as the worst of all the three, is not again named in the 
Books of Maccabees. His subsequent death under Antiochus 
Eupator was regarded as a judgment for his crimes (b.c. 163). 38 
§ 10. Two years later (b.c. 168) Antiochus vented upon Ju- 
dasa the exasperation of his dismissal from Egypt. Policy 
too, as well as passion, may have urged him to destroy a prov- 
ince now thoroughly disaffected, and likely soon to fall into the 
power of Egypt. Apollonius, the old enemy of the Jews, was 
sent to Jerusalem at the head of 22,000 men, with orders to 
slay all the male adults, and to seize the women and children. 
Pretending that his mission was friendly, he waited till the 
Sabbath, and then fell upon the unresisting people. A fright- 
ful massacre took place : the city was pillaged and set on fire : 
its fortifications were dismantled : and a tower was erected on 
Mount Zion, overlooking both the temple and the city,' from 
which the garrison sallied forth upon all who dared to resort 
to the deserted sanctuary. Then followed one of the severest 
persecutions recorded in the history of religion. 39 Antiochus 
issued an edict for uniformity of worship throughout his do- 
minions, and committed its execution in Samaria and Judsea 
to an old man named AthenaBus, 40 one of those fanatics who 
have been produced by heathenism, as well as by religions that 
claim a more earnest faith. A strong element of such fanati- 
cism may be traced in the character of Antiochus himself. 
While his quick and versatile Greek temperament, trained in 
Roman ideas of power, and corrupted by oriental luxury, led 
him to indulge in all the vices and freaks for which despotism 
supplied the means — at one time rioting through the streets of 
Antioch with his boon companions, at another going through a 
mock canvass for the Roman magistracies, and pretending to 
hold them — he was all the while a munificent and bigoted sup- 
porter of the Greek worship. " The admirers," says Dean 
Milman, " of the mild genius of the Grecian religion, and those 
who suppose religious persecution unknown in the world to 
the era of Christianity, ivould do well to consider the wanton 

37 1 Mace. i. 20-28, ii. 11-23. 40 2 Mace. vi. 1 : this seems clear- 

r8 Joseph, xiii. 3, 4. ly to be a proper name. 



Mace. 



29, foil.: 2 Mace. v. 



24-26. 



K.C. 168. Persecution of Antiochus. 27- 

and barbarous attempt of Antiochus to exterminate the relig< 
ion of the Jews and substitute that of the Greeks." 

The Samaritans submitted without resistance, and their 
temple on Mount Gerizim was dedicated to Zeus Xenius. At 
Jerusalem Athenseus began his work by converting the sanct- 
uary into a temple of Zeus Olympius. Its courts were pol- 
luted by the most licentious orgies ; the altar was loaded with 
abominable offerings ; and the old idolatry of Baal was re- 
established in the obscene form in which it had been carried 
to Greece — the phallic revels of Dionysus. The copies of the 
Book of the Law were either destroyed, or profaned by hea- 
then and doubtless obscene pictures. 41 The practice of Jewish 
rites, and the refusal to sacrifice to the Greek gods, were 
alike punished with death. Two women, who had circum- 
cised their children, were led round the city with the babes 
hanging at their breasts, and then cast headlong from the wall. 
A company of worshipers were burned by Philip in a cave, to 
which they had fled to keep the Sabbath. The favorite test 
of conformity was the compulsion to eat swine's flesh ; and 
two particular cases of heroic resistance make this one of the 
brightest pages in Jewish and Christian martyrology. A 
chief scribe, named Eleazae, a man of noble person and 
ninety years of age, when a piece of swine's flesh was thrust 
into his mouth, spat it out, and willingly offered his body to 
the torments. When some of the officers, for old acquaint- 
ance sake, besought him to provide some meat, and eat it as 
if it were the unclean food, he made a reply which contains 
the whole justification of the martyr's constancy to death: 
"It becometh not our age in anywise to dissemble, whereby 
many young persons might think that Eleazar, being fourscore 
years old and ten, were now gone to a strange religion, and so 
through mine hypocrisy, and desire to live a little time, should 
be deceived by me, and I get a stain to my old age, and make 
it abominable. For though for the present time I should be 
delivered from the punishment of men, yet I should not 
escape the hand of the Almighty 7 neither alive, nor dead." 
He concluded by declaring his resolve, "to leave a notable 
example to such as be yoking to die willingly and coura- 
geously for the honoraole and holy laws." His tempters, 
incensed at his obstinacy, grew doubly cruel, and, as he was 
expiring beneath their blows 3 he cried — "It is manifest 
unto Jehovah, that hath the holy knowledge, that whereas I 
might have been delivered from death, I endure sore pains ii3 

41 1 Maca iii, 48. 



28 



From Nehemiah to Antiochus Epiphanes. Chap. 1 



body by being beaten ; but in soul am well content to suffer 
these things, because I fear Him." 42 Thus was he " tortured, 43 
not accepting deliverance, that he might obtain a better 
resurrection ;" and he is included, with the other martyrs of 
the age, in the " cloud of martyrs," " of whom the world was 
not worthy," "who obtained a good report through faith." 
Some Christian writers have called him " the proto-martyr of 
the Old Covenant," <a glory, however, which belongs to Abel. 44 

" Others had trial of mockings and scourgings." Such was 
the fate of the seven brethren who, with their mother, were 
brought into the king's own presence, 45 and, having refused 
to eat swine's flesh, were put to death with insults and tor- 
ments, of which the horrid details may be read in the original 
text. From the eldest to the youngest, they displayed not 
only constancy but triumph; and the mother, after encour- 
aging each in his turn, herself suffered last. 46 The atrocities 
committed at Jerusalem were rivaled in the country. But 
at this very crisis, when the worship and the people of Jeho- 
vah seemed doomed to extinction, a new light arose for both ; 
and the result showed how needful was the baptism of fire to 
purify the people from the corruptions of Hellenism. 

Meanwhile the persecutor himself became a signal example 
of the retribution which awaits despotic power and unbridled 
passion ; and, before relating the resurrection of Judaea under 
the Maccabees, we may anticipate the short period of four 
years, to notice the fate of Antiochus Epiphanes. He was in 
the eastern provinces, when he heard of the revolt of Judaea 
and the defeat of his general Lysias. Hastening back to 
avenge the disgrace, he attacked a temple at Elymais, the 
very place where his father had lost his life in a similar at- 
tempt. The mortification of being repulsed seems to have 
brought to a climax the madness which despotism usually 
engenders ; and he died in a raving frenzy at Taboe in Persia, 
b.c. 164. His end was regarded, by Greeks as well as Jews, 
as a judgment for his sacrilegious crimes ; and he has left to 
history a name as odious as that of Nero, with whose charac- 
ter he had many points in common. 

44 Chrysostom, Horn. iii. in Mace. ; 
Ambros. de Jacob, ii. 10. 

45 Whether Antiochus visited Je- 
rusalem dm-ing the persecution, or 
whether they were carried to him at 
Antioch or elsewhere, does not clear- 
ly appear. 

40 2 Mace. vii. 



42 2 Mace. vi. 

43 Heb. xi. 35, 36. The very word 
chosen by the apostle, iTvnirav'ia9r)aav, 
expresses the kind of torture inflicted 
on Eleazar and other martyrs of this 
time. The whole passage clearly 
shows that the writer had them in 
his mind, though their history is not 
recorded in liie canonical Scriptures. 



B.C. 168. Silence of the Heathen Historians, 29 

§11. It is very remarkable that this great persecution, and 
the subsequent history of the glorious regeneration of Judaea 
under the Maccabees, should have been passed over by the 
Greek and Roman historians. From Polybius we might 
have expected a just appreciation of its importance, and an 
impartial summary of its facts ; but of this portion of his 
work only a few fragments remain, and the silence of Livy, 
who closely follows his history of Syria, seems to imply that 
of his great authority. Appian's meagre summary of Syrian 
history takes no notice of the Jews. Diodorus gives a very 
brief account of them, repeating the current prejudices, not 
as his own belief, but as arguments used by the counselors of 
Antiochus to urge the extirpation of the Jews. 47 The con- 
temptuous summary given by Tacitus is even more significant 
than the silence of the rest, and shows how far prejudice can 
lead even the most careful writers from the truth. He speaks 
as follows : — " During the dominion of the Assyrians, the 
Medes, and the Persians, the Jews were the most abject of 
their dependent subjects. After the Macedonians obtained 
the supremacy of the East, King Antiochus endeavored to do 
away with their superstition and introduce Greek habits, but 
was hindered by a Parthian war from reforming a most re- 
pulsive people." 48 

The spirit of this passage may explain the indifference of 
other authors. The uncompromising devotion of the Jews 
to their religion and their national traditions, and their claim 
to be worshipers of the only true God, excited among the 
heathen, and especially those who laid claim to philosophy, 
the same affected contempt and unaffected resentment which 
led Gibbon to sneer at Palestine as a country no larger nor 
more favored by nature than Wales. Nor is it only this bril- 
liant passage of the Jewish annals that escaped the notice and 
the sympathy of the western historians. The period of 370 
years, from the Decree of Cyrus to the revolt of the Macca- 
bees, embraces the most brilliant events of Greek and Roman 
history. The aristocratic republics of Greece and the mon- 
archy of Rome had reached their climax at its commencement, 
amidst the rapid growth of philosophy and art. Its first 
quarter of a century beheld the expulsion of the Pisistratids 
from Athens and the Tarquins from Rome. The struggles 
which placed Rome at the head of the Italian states, and 
formed her republican constitution, the Persian and Pelopom 
nesian wars, the conflict of the Greek states for the supremacy 

* 7 Lib. xxxix. Eel. 1 ; xl. Eel. 1. 48 Teterrimam gentem, Tao. Hist. v. 8. 



;30 . From Nehemiah to Antiochus Epiphanes. Chap.X 

which they at last yielded to the Macedonian, and the very 
conquest which brought Alexander to Judaea, are all related 
just as they might have been if there had been no such nation 
as the Jews. The keen inquiries of Herodotus, who visited 
Egypt and Tyre at the very time when Ezra and Nehemiah 
were regulating the restored state, produced nothing but the 
notice of Necho's victory over Josiah and capture of Cadytis 
(probably Gaza), the mistake " that the Syrians of Palestine" 
learned circumcision from the Egyptians, and the mention of 
them as serving with the Phoenicians in the fleet of Xerxes. 49 

The silence of the historians of Alexander and his succes- 
sors about the Jewish people is the more remarkable, as they 
have to mention Judaea as the scene of war; it is matched by 
the Romans even when they come into contact with Syria and 
Egypt ; nor is it even broken when (if we may believe the 
historian of the Maccabees) Rome formed an alliance with 
Judas Maccabaeus. A century later, when Pompey penetrated 
into the temple, the sacred city suggests even to Cicero noth- 
ing better than a nickname for his distrusted leader ; nor does 
Tacitus notice the very advent of Christ with half the interest 
he shows in the relations of the Herodian princes to the Cae- 
sars. Surely we can not but see in all this a divine purpose, 
that the outer, like the inner life, of the chosen people, should 
lie hidden from the world at large, and pursue a course apart 
from the ordinary current of warlike and political conflict, till 
from their bosom should emerge the band of lowly and 
unworldly men, who were to proclaim a "kingdom not of this 
world." 

§ 12. In preparation for that event, the Jewish people had a 
history of its own, for which we could wish to possess more 
abundant materials. They had resumed the ordinances of 
their religion, purified from their old idolatries by the Captiv- 
ity, and with their zeal constantly stimulated by antagonism 
with the Samaritans. Politically, they were subject first to 
Persia, and then to Egypt; but, as long as their tribute was 
paid, their relations to their sovereign were kindly, and they 
were left to the government of their high-priests and patri- 
archal princes ; till the great Syrian persecution. The ex- 
tinction of royalty, after it had served its purpose by giving 
an image of Messiah's kingdom, removed the chief influence 
which had led to apostasy in Israel and to idolatry in Judah; 
and the very dependence which debarred them from political 
freedom gave them the better opportunity for religious or* 

40 Herod, ii. 104, 106, 159, iii. 5, vii. 89. 



B.C. 168. State of the Jewish Nation. 31 

ganization. The band by which the "people of God" were 
held together was at length felt to be religious and not local ; 
and all the more so from the existence of large portions of 
the nation separate from the rest, in the great Eastern " dis- 
persion," or in the new community formed in Egypt. The 
Jews incorporated in different nations still looked to Jerusa- 
lem as the centre of their faith. The boundaries of Canaan 
were passed; and the beginnings of a spiritual dispensation 
were already made. But this process could not work unmixed 
good. "Tn the darkness of this long period, Judaism, with 
its stern and settled aversion to all polytheism, to Gentile in- 
fluences, gradually hardened into its rigid exclusiveness. . . . 
Conflicting opinions, which grew up under the Asmonaaan 
princes into religious factions, those of the Pharisees and Sad- 
dujcees, began to stir in the religious mind and heart of the 
people. The old Nazaritism grew toward the latter Esse- 
nism." 50 ; ..' 

The Jews restored to Palestine resumed their agricultural 
life on a land rendered doubly fertile by having " enjoyed her 
Sabbaths as long as she lay desolate, to fulfill threescore and ten 
years ;" 51 and it may be observed in passing, that the ordinance 
of ; the Sabbatic year, which had been so systematically neg- 
lected before the Captivity, was observed in the Maccabaean 
age. How the land was divided among the returned families 
we are not told; but thus much seems -clear, that it soon fell 
chiefly into the hands of the nobles, who, becoming rapidly 
enriched through the fertility of the soil, resumed that course 
of ^oppression toward the poor, which the old prophets had so 
vehemently denounced as the crying sin of their class. An 
order which thus sets itself above the social bonds of mutual 
kindness is prone to maintain its consequence against popular 
discontent by foreign influence ; and, just as the princes of 
Judah headed the idolatrous and Egyptian party in the last 
days of the monarchy, so now they were the leaders of the 
Syrian and hellenizing party. Their influence was resisted, as 
formerly by the prophets, so now by the priests, who headed 
the glorious uprising of the nation in defense of their relig- 
ion. The issue of that contest proves that the nation was still 
sound at heart at the time of the Syrian domination. 

89 Milman, " 2 Chvon. xxxvi. 21. 



NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



KINGS OF THE GREEK KINGDOM OF SYRIA. 



r~ - ■- 

Kings. 


Length of Reign. 


Date of Accession. 


1. Seleucus I. Nicator 


32 years. 


Oct. 312. 


2. Antiochus I. Soter . . 










19 " 


Jan. 280. 


3. Antiochus II. Theos . . 










15 " 


Jan. 261. 


4. Seleucus II. Callinicus . 










20 " 


Jan. 246. 


5. Seleucus III. Ceraunus . 










3 " 


Aug. 226. 


6. Antiochus II f. the Great 










36 " 


Aug. 223. 


7. Seleucus IV. Philopator 










12 " 


Oct. 187. 


8. Antiochus IV. Epiphanes 










11 " 


Aug. 175. 


9. Antiochus V. Eupator . 










2 " 


Dec. 164. 


10. Demetrius I. Soter . . 










12 " 


Nov. 162. 


1J. Alexander Balas . . . 










5 " 


Aug. 150. 


f Demetrius II. Nicator (1st reignH 






12. 1 Antiochus VI. Theos \- 
(JTryphon J 


9 " 


Nov. 146. 






13. Antiochus VII. Sidetes 


9 " 


Feb. 137. 


(Demetrius II. Nicator (2d reign)) 
(Alexander Zebina | ' 


3 " 


Feb. 128. 


14. Seleucus V 


tt tt 


Feb. 125. 


15. Antiochus VIII. Grypus .... 


13 " 


Aug. 125. 


16. Antiochus IX. Cyzenicus .... 


18 " 


113. 


17. /Seleucus VI. "N 


u " 


It tt 


IS \ Antiochus X. Eusebes Philippus/ 


12 " 


95. 


19. )Tigranes I 


14 " 


83. 


20. \ Demetrius III. Eucserus /' 


ii it 


U It 


21. /Antiochus XI. Epiphanes V 


tl tt 


it tt 


22. ^Antiochus XII. Dionysus J 


It ft 


u tt 


23. Antiochus Asiaticus 

i 


4 " 


69. 





Coin of Antiochus Epipkanes. 



CHAPTER n. 

THE ACACCAB-EAX WAR OF IXDEPEXDEXCE. B.C. 168-106. 

§ 1. The family of Mattathias — His retirement from Jerusalem to Modin— 
He refuses to sacrifice, kills the royal officer, and flees to the mount- 
ains — Progress of the revolt, and death of Mattathias. § 2. Jcdas 
the Maccabee succeeds his father, and defeats Apollonius and Seron. 
§ 3. Measures of Antiochus Epiphanes — Great victories of Judas over 
Nicanor and Gorgias, Tirnotheus and Bacchides, § 4. Defeat of Lysias 
at Bethsura — Judas takes Jerusalem and purifies the Temple — "Feast 
of the Dedication." § 5. Wars with the neighboring nations. § 6. An- 
tiochus V. Eupator and Lysias invade Judaea — Capture of Bethsura — 
Eleazar Avaran crushed under an elephant — Treachery of Antiochus 
at Jerusalem — Accession of Demetrius I. Soter — Flight of Onias IV. 
to Egypt, and building of the Jewish temple at Leontopolis — Alcimus 
high-priest at Jerusalem — Armies sent to establish him — Decisive defeat 
of Nicanor at Adasa, the Jewish Marathon. § 7. Alliance of the 
Jews with Rome — Their defeat at Eleasa, the Maccabaean Thermopylae 
— Death of Judas. § 8. Jonathan Apphns, the Maccabee, succeeds 
Judas — Death of Alcimus and peace with Bacchides — War between 
Alexander Balas and Demetrius — Jonathan made high-priest — He 
defeats Apollonius — Fall of Alexander Balas — Demetrius II. Nicator 
assisted by Jonathan against Tryphon — Antiochus VI. Theos favors the 
Jews — Jonathan taken prisoner by Tryphon — His death. § 9. Simon 
Thassi, the Maccabee, accomplishes the independence of Judaea — Usur- 
pation of Tryphon in Syria — Murder of Antiochus Theos, and captiv- 
ity of Demetrius Nicator in Parthia — Prosperity of Judaea — Treaties 
with Rome and Lacedaemon — Defeat of Tryphon by Antiochus VII. 
Sidetes — Last Syrian war against Judaea — Victory of Judas and John, 
the sons of Simon, over Cendebeus — Treacherous murder of Simon, 
with his sons Judas and Mattathias, at Jericho, by Ptolemy, son of 
Abubus. § 10. John Hyrcanus, son of Simon, besieges Jericho — 
Cruelties and escape of Ptolemy — Antiochus Sidetes takes Jerusalem 
and gains the surname of Eusebes — His death in Parthia — Complete 
independence of Judaea — John Hyrcanus conquers Idumaea and Sa- 
maria, and destroys the temple on Mount Gerizim — Quarrels with the 
Pharisees and favors the Sadducees — His death. §11. Review of the 
Maccabaean contest in the light of patriotism and religion. § 12. Be- 
B 2 



34 The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap. II 

lief in the Resurrection and tcadfastness to the Law — Literature and 
art — Maccabaean coins. 

§ 1. The persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes called forth a 
glorious resistance, which ended in establishing the independ- 
ence of Judsea under the Maccabaean or Asmonaean princes. 1 
An aged priest named Mattathias, the son of Simeon (or 
Simon), son of Johanan (John), son of Chasnion, of the course 
of Joarib (the first of David's twenty-four courses), and of the 
house of Eleazar, Aaron's elder son, had esc-aped from Jerusa- 
lem at the beginning of the persecution. 2 He took up his abode 
at his own city of Modin % (probably on the edge of the great 
maritime plain of Philistia), with his five sons, John, Simon, 
Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan, besides other kindred. For a 
time they mourned over the desolation of Jerusalem and the 
sanctuary; but the nearer approach of danger roused them 
to exertion. The king's officers, headed by Apelles, came to 
Modin, and called first on Mattathias, as the principal man of 
the city, to earn honors and rewards by obeying the royal edict. 
But Mattathias indignantly refused, for himself, his sons, and 
all his kindred. Others were prepared to be more compliant ; 
and one of them advanced to the altar, to contrast his obedi- 
ence with the example of rebellion. Mattathias could forbear 
no longer. He rushed forward, and slew first the apostate, 

1 It may be well to explain these I ceived with caution. Joseph us fol- 
narnes at once. Maccabee was orig- ] lows 1 Mace, for the period which 
inally the surname of Judas, the j it embraces, very closely, but slight 
third son of Mattathias. Its most j additions of names and minute par- 
probable etymology is from Macca- \ ticulars indicate that he was in pos- 
tal, a hammer, like Charles Martel. j session of other materials, probably 
The appellation has also been com- I oral traditions, which have not been 
pared with the Malleus Scotorum and ! elsewhere preserved. On the other 
Malleus Haretic&rum of the Middle \ hand there are cases, in which, from 
Ages. Asmona?an (or rather Chas- j haste or carelessness, he has misin- 
mon&an) is the proper name of the terpreted his authority. From other 
family, from Chasmon, the great- J sources little can be gleaned. He- 
grandfather of Mattathias. j brew and classical literature furnish 
. The original authorities for the ; nothing more than a few trifling 
history of the Maccabees are ex- fragments which illustrate Maccabse- 
tremely scanty ; but for the course an history. So long an interval 
of the war itself the first book of elapsed before the Hebrew traditions 
Maccabees is a most trustworthy, if j were committed to writing, that 
an incomplete, witness. The second ! facts, when not embodied in rites 
book adds some important details to. | or precepts, became wholly distort- 
the history of the earlier part of the j ed. See the pedigree in Notes and 



struggle, and of the events which 
immediately preceded it; but all the 
statements which, it contains require 
close examination, and must be rc- 



I Illustrations (A). 

2 I Mace. ii. 1 ; comp. 2 Mace. v. 
27. 

3 Notes and Illustrations (13) 



B.C. 167. Judas Maccabceus. 35 

and next the king's commissioner, on the akar itself, which he 
then pulled down; just as his ancestor Phinehas had slain 
Zimri. 4 Having proclaimed throughout the city, that all who 
were zealous for the law and covenant should follow him, 
Mattathias fled with his sons to the mountains ; and was joined 
by " many that sought after justice and judgment." The 
destruction of a thousand of the fugitives, who would not 
break the Sabbath by fighting, led Mattathias and his friends 
to declare the lawfulness of self-defense upon the Sabbath. 
Among their first adherents were the Assid^eans ( Chasidim, 
pious or holy), a sect or society who had bound themselves 
by a special vow to the observance of the law. 5 Issuing from 
their mountain-fastnesses, they broke down the heathen altars, 
and killed many of the worshipers, while others fled to the 
S y rians ; they circumcised children by force, and recovered 
many copies of the law. But the work was too arduous for 
the aged Mattathias. After a noble exhortation to his sons, 
encouraging them by the examples of the ancient worthies, 
from Abraham to Daniel, and having appointed his son Judas 
his successor, he died, and was buried at Modin, in the sepul- 
chre of his fathers (b.c. 167). 6 

§ 2. Judas, the third and most warlike 7 of the sons oi 
Mattathias, and hence surnamed Maccabeus (the Hammerer), 
proved to Judaea what our Alfred was to England, Bruce to 

4 I Mace. ii. 15-26, 54 ; comp. oi \sy6fievoi riov 'lovdaiojv 'Acndaioi, 
Num. xxv. ; u>v cKprjyelrai 'Iov?ag 6 MaKKaj3aXoQ 

5 Chasidim (' AviSaToi ; Assidcei ; i.e. . . .) When Bacchides came against 
the pious "puritans;" oi evcre/iuc, oi Jerusalem they used their influence 
ocnoi), was the name assumed by a (I Mace. vii. 13, -n-pwroi oi Amd. 
section of the orthodox Jews (1 r/crav iv vioTg 'lapaqX) to conclude a 
Mace. ii. 42, alii 'lovoaiojv probably by peace, because "a priest of the seed 
correction ; 1 Mace. vii. 13 ; 2 Mace, of Aaron " (Alcimus) was with him, 
xiv. 6), as distinguished from " the and sixty of them fell by his treach- 
impious " (oi avefiug, 1 Mace. iii. 8, cry. The name Chasidim occurs fre- 
vi. 21, vii. 5, etc.), " the lawless " (oi quently in the Psalms (e. g. Ps. Ixxix. 
avonoi, 1 Mace. iii. 6, ix. 23, etc.), j 2=1 Mace. vii. 17; exxxii. 9, etc.); 
" the transgressors " (oi Trapdvo/xoi, 1 and it has been adopted in recent 
Mace. i. 11, etc.), that is, the hellen- times by a sect of Polish Jews, who 
feing faction. They appear to have ex- take as the basis of their mystical 
istcd as a party bsfore the Maccabasan system the doctrines of the Cabalist- 
rising, and were probably bound by I ic book Zohar. Some historians see 
some peculiar vow to the external ob- j in the Chasidim the prototype of the 
servance of the Law (1 Mace. ii. 42, | sect of the Pharisees. 
tKovaiaZ l £<j9ai t<i> vofiqj). They were 6 1 Mace. ii. 49-70. The passage 
among the first to join Mattathias ; gives striking characters of Abraham, 
(1 Mace. /. c); and seem afterward Joseph, Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb, 
to have been merged in the general David, Elijah, and Daniel and his 
body of the faithful (2 Mace xiv. 6, three comrades. 7 1 Mace. ii. 66. 



36 The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap. IX 

Scotland, and Tell to Switzerland. His noble character, which 
the historian describes in glowing terms, commanded the cheer- 
ful submission of his brethren and friends. He carried on his 
father's course of operations, in which he seems already to 
have been the chief leader under him. 8 Venturing privately 
into the towns, Judas and his friends gathered an army of 
about 6000 worshipers of Jehovah. 9 After training his 
followers by night attacks and surprises, 10 he defeated the army 
of Apollonius, who marched against him from Samaria, slew 
the general, and ever afterward wore his sword. 11 Another 
great host, led by Seron, the governor of Coelesyria, was routed 
in the passes of Beth-horon, after a noble address of Judas 
before the battle. The Syrians fled, with the loss of about 800 
men, down the pass to the plain of the Philistines, just as the 
Canaanites had fled before Joshua over the same ground. 12 

§ 3. Antiochus was the more enraged at the news, as his 
finances were in disorder. The hellenizing policy, which he 
had pursued as rashly in other provinces as in Judaea, had 
created wide-spread disaffection, and Armenia and Persia, in 
particular, had refused to pay tribute. He called out all his 
forces ; and, having exhausted his treasure in giving them a 
year's pay in advance, he marched into Persia to recruit his 
finances, leaving half his forces to Lysias, a noble of the royal 
blood, whom he made his lieutenant west of the Euphrates, 
and guardian of his infant son, Antiochus. Lysias, having 
been commissioned to extirpate the whole Jewish nation, gave 
his orders to Ptolemy Macron, the governor of Coelesyria, who 
sent forth Meaner and Gorgias, with 40,000 infantry and 7000 
cavalry. Judas assembled his 6000 men at the ancient sanct- 
uary of Mizpeh (Jerusalem being still in the hands of Philip), 
and after solemn religious services, he proclaimed, like Gideon, 
that all who were timid, as well as those who were exempt by 
the law from military service, might leave the camp, and en- 
couraged the rest for the battle of the morrow. 13 

During the night, Gorgias marched out of the Syrian camp at 
Emmaus, with 5000 foot and 1000 chosen horse, to surprise the 
Jewish cam]). Hearing of the movement, Judas left his camp, 
and appeared at day-break in the plain, with his army now 
weeded to 3000 men, who ''had neither armor nor swords 
to their minds." The Syrian army under Nicanor was routed, 
and pursued to Ashdod and Jamnia, with the loss of 3000 

8 1 Mace. iii. 1-9 ; comp. 2 Mace. 1 10 2 Mace. viii. 5-7. 

v. 27, where he alone is mentioned i :1 1 Mace. iii. 10-12. 

as escaping from Jerusalem to the i 12 1 Mace. iii. 13-24. 

mountains. a 2 Mace. viii. 1. I 13 1 Mace. iii. 27-60. 



B.C. 166. Dedication of the Temple. 37 

men. Judas recalled his little army to meet Gorgias, who. 
finding the Jewish camp deserted, had advanced into the 
mountains. Learning the victory of the Jews by the smoke 
of Mcanor's camp, the followers of Gorgias fled. Besides the 
rich spoils of the Syrian camp, " much gold and silver, and 
blue silk and purple of the sea, and great riches," there were 
found a number of merchants from the maritime cities, who 
had been attracted by Nicanor's promise to sell his prisoners 
for slaves : these, by a just retribution, were themselves sold 
into slavery. Having kept the Sabbath which followed the 
victory with great thanksgivings, Judas crossed the Jordan, 
and defeated Timotheus and Bacchides, slaying above 20,000 
Syrians, and taking many of the strongholds of Gilead (b.c. 
167) . 14 

§ 4. In the following year Lysias, with an army of 60,000 
chosen foot and 5000 horse, advanced to Bethsura, 15 where he 
was met by Judas with only 10,000 men. After his usual 
fervent prayers and an animating harangue, Judas fell upon 
the Syrians, and defeated them with the slaughter of 5000 
men ; and Lysias retreated to Antioch to gather fresh forces. 
This victory gave the patriots possession of Jerusalem, except 
the Syrian tower, and Judas employed the respite from inces- 
sant war in cleansing the temple, the deserted courts of which 
were overgrown with tall shrubs, and the chamber of the priests 
thrown down. The sacre^l vessels were replaced from the 
Syrian booty, and the sanctuary was dedicated anew on the 
25th of Chisleu, exactly three years after its profanation (Dec. 
b.c. 166). A festival was kept for eight days, with rejoicings 
similar to those of the Feast of Tabernacles ; the solemnity 
was made a perpetual institution, and this is the "Feast of 
the Dedication" mentioned by St. John as being kept in the 
winter. 16 During this solemnity, Judas had to employ a part 
of his forces to keep in check the Syrians, who still held the 
tower on Mount Zion. He afterward secured the temple 

14 1 Mace. iv. 1. I its position, since it commands the 

15 Beth-zur (house of the rock) was a j'rbad from Beersheba and Hebron, 
town in the mountains of Judah (Josh, which lias always been the main ap- 
xv. 58), a fortress of Rehoboam (2 j proach to Jerusalem from the south. 
Chr. xi. 7), and a place of great im- i 16 1 Mace. iv. ; 2 Mace. x. 1-8 ; 
portance, as we shall see repeatedly, ' John x. 22. Solomon's temple was 
in the Maccabsean wars. The recov- ; dedicated at the Feast of Taberna- 
ery of the site of Beth-zur under the cles. The second temple was dedt- 
almost identical name of Beitsur, by rated on the 3d of Adar (latter part of 
Wolcott and Robinson (i. 216, note; February), but of this no anniv^nsfr- 
iii. 277), explains its impregnability, j ry was instituted. 

and also the reason for the choice of I 



88 The Maccaboean War •of Independence. Chap.u 

against attacks from that quarter by 'the erection of a strong 
wall and towers, well manned. He also fortified and garrisoned 
Beth sura. 17 y, 

§ 5. These successes roused the old jealous enmities of the 
surrounding nations, who began to massacre the Jews that 
dwelt among them ; but Judas was as prompt to chastise as 
to deliver. He made a descent on Joppa, and burned many 
houses and ships, to avenge the treacherous murder of 200 
Jews, who had been decoyed on board the vessels in the har- 
b or, and there drowned; and another treacherous massacre 
at Jamnia was punished by the conflagration of the town and 
ships, whose flames were seen from Jerusalem, a distance of 
twenty-five miles. 18 He had returned to Judasa from a cam- 
paign against the Idumseans and the Ammonites, when letters 
arrived announcing the extreme danger of the Jews in Gilead 
and Galilee. Judas divided his forces, sending his brother 
Simon into Galilee, while he marched with Jonathan into Gil- 
ead. Both expeditions were successful, and future dangers 
were guarded against by the removal of the Galilean and Trans- 
jordanic Jews to Jerusalem. In the mean time, Joseph and 
Azarias, who had been left at Jerusalem with strict orders 
not to fight, were tempted by the news of these victories to 
attack Gorgias at Jamnia. They were routed with the loss of 
2000 men; but this heavy blow increased the confidence of 
the people in the Maccabrean brothers as their only worthy 
leaders; and another slight reverse confirmed the prudence 
by which Judas regulated his valor. He revenged the defeat, 
not without considerable loss. " When they proceeded, after 



17 1 Mace. iv. 60, 61. 

18 2 Mace. xii. 0. Jamnia or Jab- 
nia (in Hebrew Jabneel) is an impor- 
tant place in the Maccaboean war 



great Sanhedrim was also held here. 
In this holy city, according to an 
early Jewish tradition, was buried 
i lie great Gamaliel. His tomb was 



It was on the northern boundary of, visited by Parchi in the 14th century 
Judah, between Ashdod and Joppa, : (Zunz, in Asher's Beiij. of Tudela, 



not quite at the sea, though near 
it (Josh. xv. 11). It had a harbor 
called, like those of Ascalon and 
Gaza, Majumas, perhaps a Coptic 
word, meaning the "place on the 
sea " (Reland, 590, etc. ; Raumer, 
174 note, 184 note; Kenrick, Phozni- 
cia, 27, 29). At the time of the fall 
of Jerusalem, Jabneh was one of the 
most populous places of Judasa, and 
contained a Jewish school of great 
fame, whoso learned doctors arc oft 



en mentioned in the Talmud. The ' 274). 



439, 440 ; also 98). The modern 
village of Yebna, or more correctly 
lima, stands about two miles from 
the sea on a slight eminence just 
sou tli of the Nahr Rubin. It is about 
eleven miles south of Jaffa, seven 
from Ramleh, and four from Akir 
(Ekron). It probably occupies its 
ancient site, for some remains of old 
buildings are to be seen, possibly rel- 
ics of the fortress which the Crusad- 
ers built there (Porter, Hand-book, 



B.C. 164. Flight of Onias IV. to Egypt. 39 

observing the Sabbath in Adullam, to bury the dead, small 
idols were found in the clothes even of some of the priestly race. 
A sin-offering was sent to Jerusalem, not only to atone for 
the guilt of these men, but for the dead, in whose resurrection 
the Maccabaean Jews, no doubt the Chasidim, had full faith." 12 
He finished the campaign by reducing Hebron, and overrun- 
ning the Philistine country and Samaria. 20 

§ 6. About this time Antiochus Epiphanes died, in the 
manner already described. 21 His young son, Antiochus V, 
Eupator (b.c. 164-162), was placed on the throne by Lysias, 
and a new campaign was undertaken for the relief of the 
Syrian garrison, who were now besieged in the citadel of 
Zion. The king and Lysias laid siege to Bethsura, w T hile 
Judas hastened to its relief. The Syrian army numbered 
80,000 or 100,000 foot, 20,000 horse, and 32 elephants. 
These beasts, now for the first time mentioned in Jewish 
warfare, are described as escorted each by 1000 foot and 500 
horse ; each bore a tower containing 32 men, an exaggeration 
significant of the alarm caused by the strange sight : and it 
was believed that they were provoked to fight by the sight 
of the blood of grapes and mulberries. But the courage of 
the Jewish patriots was stimulated by the noble example of 
Eleazae, surnamed Avaran, the fourth of the Maccabsean 
brothers, who crept under an elephant and killed it, but was 
crushed to death by its fall. Nor did his self-devotion en- 
sure the victory : Judas was compelled to retreat to Jerusa- 
lem, and Bethsura capitulated on favorable terms. The fall 
of the fortress is ascribed to famine, in consequence of the 
dearth of corn in the Sabbatic year — an incidental proof of 
the observance of that institution by the restored Jews (b.c. 
163). The same cause reduced Jerusalem, which was next 
besieged, to the last extremities of famine, but drove the 
besiegers also to straits. 

! Meanwhile, however, the army which Antiochus Epiphanes 
had led into Persia returned under Philip, who claimed the 
guardianship of the young king. Upon this Lysias advised 
Antiochus to make peace with the Jews. The king w T as no 
sooner admitted into the city, than he broke the terms just 
made by pulling down the new wall of Judas ; after which he 
retired to Antioch, and recovered the capital from Philip. His 
triumph was brief, for Demetrius, the son of Seleucus IV. — 



19 " 2 Mace. xii. 44. For if he 
had not hoped that they that were 
slain should have risen again, it had 
been superfluous and vain to pray 



for the dead. This is the earliest 
distinct assertion of the Jewish bclieJ 
in the resurrection."— Mihnan. 
20 1 Mace. v. 21 Chap. i. § 10 



40 



The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap, ft 



whose rightful inheritance had been usurped by his uncle, An- 
tiochus Epiphanes — returned from Rome, where he had been 
a hostage, overthrew and put to death Antiochus and Lysias, 
and became king by the title of Demetrius I. Soter 22 (b.c. 
162-150). With more subtle policy than his predecessor, De- 
metrius availed himself of the divisions among the Jews. The 
common people appear to have become discontented under the 
austere yoke of the Assidaeans, and impatient of the long sac- 
rifices demanded in the cause of patriotism ; and for the first 
time the hellenizing party was headed by a high-priest, who, 
unlike the usurpers, Jason and Menelaus, might plead a legiti- 
mate title. 

Onias III., whose death at Antioch by the artifices of Men- 
elaus has been related, left a son of the same name, who, though 
he never exercised the high-priesthood at Jerusalem, may be 
called Onias IV., to avoid confusion. During the usurpation 
of Jason and Menelaus, Onias seems to have supported an al- 
liance with Egypt, whither he at length fled, and was protect- 
ed by Ptolemy Philometor. As the legitimate heir to the high- 
priesthood, he formed the project of reviving in Egypt the 
worship which had been desecrated in Judsoa. Egypt seemed 
well fitted to form a new centre of hellenistic Judaism by the 
great number of Jews who had settled there at various times, 
and by the possession of the Septuagint version of the Script- 
ures. Onias therefore built a temple, of which he and his 
family became high-priests ; so that there were now three tem- 
ples, the true one at Jerusalem, the Samaritan on Mount Ger< 
izim, and the hellenistic in Egypt. 28 

One consequence of the secession of Onias was that, on the 
execution of Menelaus by order of Antiochus Eupator (about 
b.c. 163), the high-priesthood of Jerusalem passed out of the 
line of Jozadak, the father of Jeshua, in which it had remained 
since the return from the Captivity. Antiochus appointed 
Joakim 24 (Jacimus), who, as Josephus says, was indeed of the 



22 1 Mace. vi. 

2 Joseph. Ant. xiii.3; B. J. i. I, § 
1, vii. 10, § 2. The site of the temple 
is doubtful. The so-called original 
letters in Josephus place it at Leon- 
topolis in the Heliopolire nome ; but 
Leontopolis was the capital of a nome 
of its own, and the letters are spuri- 
ous. Josephus and Ptolemy speak of 
"region" and "city of Onias," in the 
Heliopolite nome. Sir Gardner Wil- 
kinson places its site at one of the so- 



called "Jewish Mounds" {Tel-el- Ya- 
hoodeeyeh), about twelve miles north of 
Heliopolis {Modern Egypt and Thebes, 
vol. i. pp. 297-300). There arc nu- 
merous other traces of the residence 
of the Jews on the north-east frontier 
of Egypt ; and, from the mention by 
Josephus of a " Camp of the Jews " 
{Ant. xiv. 8, § 2), it would seem 
that they were placed in military sta- 
tions as the known enemies of Syria. 
24 A name equivalent to Elicdcim 



B.C. 164. Flight of Onias IV. to Egypt. 41 

stock of Aaron, but not of this family. Alcimus, for such was 
the Greek name which the new high-priest adopted, became 
the head of the hellenizing party, and courted Demetrius, who 
sent an army under Bacchides to set up the high-priest at Je- 
rusalem. Their overtures of peace could not deceive Judas; 
but the Assidaeans trusted to the sacred character of the high- 
priest, who repaid their confidence by killing sixty of them in 
one day. 25 

Bacchides returned to Antioch, leaving the high-priest as 
governor ; while the indefatigable Judas w T ent through the cit- 
ies of Judah rallying the patriots. Alcimus again repaired to 
Antioch for help ; and Nicanor, who was sent to restore him, 
was defeated by Judas at Capharsalama. He retired to the 
citadel of Zion, where his refusal to listen to the overtures of 
the priests until Judas was delivered up to him, and his fero- 
cious cruelties, reunited the patriots in resistance and prayer 
for his overthrow. A battle ensued at Adasa, near Beth- 
horon, where Judas gained his most glorious victory, on the 
13th of Adar (end of February, e.c. 161), a day which was kept 
as a national festival. Nicanor was slain, and his head and 
hand w ere exposed as trophies at Jerusalem. The independence 
of Judaea was won, though it was not finally secured till after 
several years of contest, and the death of all the Maccabae- 
an brothers. Meanwhile the land enjoyed a brief interval of 
rest. 26 

§ 7. It is at this juncture that the name of Rome first ap- 
pears in Jewish history. The imagination of Judas was cap- 
tivated by the successes she had gained against the Gauls and 
Spaniards, and especially over those Greek powers with which 
he was so fiercely struggling. He had heard of their defeats 
of Philip, Perseus, and Antiochus the Great, and of their pow- 
er to set up and cast down kings ; but he seems to have been 
most attracted by their republican form of government. 27 He 
sent to Rome Eupolemus the son of John, with Jason the son 
of Eleazar, to propose a league against Syria ; and the envoys 
brought back a letter, inscribed on brazen tablets, containing 
the articles of alliance between the Romans and the Jews. 28 
But before they reached Judaea, the career of Judas was closed ; 
gloriously indeed, but in a manner which we can scarcely doubt 
that one of the old prophets would have regarded as a judg 



{God hath set up), in Greek Alcimus. I 26 1 Mace. vii. 19-50 ; 2 Mace. xv. 
Joseph. Ant. xii. 9, § 5 ; 1 Mace. vii. | 36. 

14. 27 1 Mace. viii. 1-16. 28 1 Mace, 

26 1 Mace. vii. 1-18. I viii. 17-32, 



A2 The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap.1I. 

; merit for seeking strength from a heathen alliance, as the only 
error of his life. 

Demetrius had sent his whole force, under Bacchides, to re< 
store Alcimus and avenge Nicanor. The treaty with Rome 
seems to have offended the extreme party of the Assidaeans; 
and Judas had only 3000 men to oppose to the enemy's 20,000 
foot and 2000 horse. Their camp was at "Berea" (probably 
Beeroth), and his at " Eleasa." 29 His men, terrified by the dis^ 
parity of numbers, continued to desert, till only 800 remained. 
These urged Judas to fly, and wait for a better opportunity. 
His reply shows that prophetic instinct which has often warn- 
ed a hero of coming death: — "If our time be come, let us die 
manfully for our brethren, and let us not stain our honor !" 
He took post, with his chosen warriors, over against the right 
wing of the Syrians, where Bacchides commanded. He defeat- 
ed this wing, the strength of the Syrian army, pursuing them 
to Azotus. But the Syrians on the left, scarcely meeting with 
opposition, fell upon the rear of the victorious Jews. The odds 
were overwhelming; and the disaster was crowned by the 
death of Judas, whereupon his followers fled. His brothers, 
Jonathan and Simon, recovered his body, and buried him in his 
father's sepulchre at Modin, amidst the lamentations of all Is- 
rael, as they cried, " How is the valiant man fallen that deliv- 
ered Israel !" 30 As Adasa was the Marathon of the Jewish war 
of freedom, so Eleasa was its Thermopylae ; and, when Scripture 
history recovers its place in the literature of Christendom, the 
fame of Leonidas will no longer eclipse that of Judas Maccabae- 
us. His best eulogy is the simple record of his deeds, of which 
his historian assures us that they were too many to be written. 51 
"Among those lofty spirits," says Dean Milman, "ivho have 
asserted the liberty of their native land against wanton and 
cruel oppression, none have surpassed the most able of the 
Maccabees in accomplishing a great end with inadequate means ; 
none ever united more generous valor with a better cause :" 3S 
none, we may add, more completely gave God the glory. There 
is at least one worthy tribute to his honor in the splendid 
oratorio of Handel. His death occurred in b.c. 161. 

§ 8. The triumph of Bacchides and the " impious " faction 
was aided by the distress of a great famine, and the friends 

29 1 Mace. ix. 1-5. The Vulgate [ Ashdod (v. 15). The attacks of the 
has Laisa. The position is very un- : Syrians during this war were chiefly 
certain. Some propose to identify it made from that side, 
with Laish, and even with Adasa. It ! :0 1 Mace. ix. 6-22. :1 1 Mace. ix. 
seems to have heen on the west slope j 22. 
of the mountains of Judah. above J 32 Jlistovn of the Jew*, vol. ii. p. 14 



B.C. 161. Jonathan Maccabceiis. 43 

of Judas were hunted down on every side. But, as before, 
this want of moderation compelled resistance. Joxathax, 
surnamed Apphus (the wary), the fifth and youngest son of 
Mattathias, was chosen leader, as the most warlike of the 
three surviving brothers ; Simon aiding him with his counsel. 
They established themselves in the wilderness of Tekoah, 
where their first exploit was to avenge their eldest brother 
Joim (Johanan), surnamed Gaddis, who was treacherously 
killed by the Arabs, while conveying some of the effects of 
the patriots to the care of the Nabathaeans. Incensed by 
this deed, Bacchides, on a Sabbath, attacked their position in 
the marshes of the Jordan ; but they escaped by swimming 
across the river, having slain 1000 of the Syrians (b.c. 161). 
Bacchides now occupied himself with fortifying Jericho, Em- 
maus, Beth-horon, Bethel, and other strong cities in Judah, 
and he placed in them hostages from the chief families. Alci- 
mus had set to work with equal ardor to pull down the walls 
round the temple, when he was struck with a palsy, and died 
in great torment. Upon this, Bacchides returned to Antioch, 
and the land had rest for two years. 33 A last attempt of the 
helleniziug party to call in the aid of Bacchides proved their 
ruin ; for, enraged by a defeat which he suffered from Jona- 
than, Bacchides put to death many of the faction who had in- 
vited him, and gave up the enterprise. Before he retreated, 
however, he accepted the invitation of Jonathan to make 
peace ; restored his prisoners and hostages ; and promised 
not again to molest the Jews, a promise which he kept. 
Jonathan established himself at the fortress of Michmash, so 
renowned in the history of his great namesake, the son of Saul. 
There he governed the people, and " destroyed the ungodly 
men out of Israel." 34 This state of things lasted for about 
six years (b.c. 158-153). 

The claim of Alexander Balas, a pretended son of Antio- 
chus Epiphanes, to the crown of Syria, led to a new advance- 
ment of Jonathan and the Jews (b.c. 153), who were courted 
by both rivals. Demetrius wrote first, authorizing Jonathan 
to raise an army, and commanding that the hostages in the 
tower of Zion should be delivered to him. This was at once 
done, and Jonathan began to repair the fortifications of Jeru- 
salem. Meanwhile all of the hostile party fled from the forti- 
fied cities, except Bethsura. Next came the letter from Alex- 
ander, nominating Jonathan to the high-priesthood, which had 
been vacant since the death of Alcimus, and sending him a 

38 b.c. 160-158. 1 Mace, ix. 23-57. :4 1 Mace, ix, 58-7& 



44 



The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap. II. 



purple robe and a crown of gold. Jonathan assumed these 
insignia at the Feast of Tabernacles (b.c. 153), and thus began 
the line of the priest-princes of the Asmonaean family. 35 
Demetrius, in despair, now made new and unbounded offers : 
freedom for all the Jews of his kingdom from tribute, from 
the duties on salt, and from crown-taxes ; and exemption 
from the payment of the third of the seed and the half of the 
produce of fruit-trees. The three governments of Apherema, 
Lydda, and Ramathem, 30 including the port of Ptolemais 
(Acre), were to be taken from Samaria and annexed to Judasa 
forever, under the sole government of the high-priest. An 
army of 30,000 Jews was to be raised at the king's expense, 
to garrison the cities and act as a police. Jerusalem, with 
its territory, was declared holy, free from tithe and tribute, 
and a place of asylum. A large annual sum was promised 
for the works of the temple and the fortifications of the city, 
and the revenues of Ptolemais were assigned for the ordinary 
expenses of the sanctuary. All Jewish captives throughout the 
Syrian empire were to be set free, and all the feasts were to 
be holidays for them. More moderate offers might have been 
a better proof of good faith. The Jews had more confidence 
in Alexander, who was moreover favored by Rome ; and, 
after he had defeated and killed Demetrius (b.c. 150), he gave 
Jonathan a magnificent reception at Ptolemais, on his mar- 
riage with Cleopatra the daughter of Ptolemy Philometor. 37 



35 It does not appear that any direct 
claimant to the high-priesthood re- 
mained since Onias the younger, who 
inherited the claim of his father 
Onias, the last legitimate high-priest, 
had retired to Egypt. A new and 
glorious succession of high-priests now 
arose in the Asmonasan family, who 
united the dignity of civil rulers, and 
for a time of independent sovereigns, j 
to that of the high-priesthood. Jose- 
phus, who is followed by Lightfoot, 
Selden, and others, calls Judas Mac- 
cabaeus "high-priest of the nation of 
Judah" (Ant. xii. 10, § 6), but, ac- 
cording to the far better authority of 
1 Mace. x. 20, it was not till after the 
death of Judas Maccabaeus that Al- 
cimus himself died, and that Alex- 
ander, King of Syria, made Jonathan, 
the brother of Judas, high-priest. Jo- 
sephus himself too calls Jonathan 
" the first of the sons of Asamoneus, 



who was high-priest" (Vita, § 1). It 
is possible, however, that Judas may 
have been elected by the people to 
the office of high-priest, though never 
confirmed in it by the Syrian kings. 
The Asmonasan family were priests 
of the course of Joarib, the first of 
the twenty -four courses (L Chr. xxiv. 
7), and whose return from captivity 
is recorded in 1 Chr. ix. 10 ; Neh. xi. 
10. They were probably of the house 
of Eleazar, though this can not be af- 
firmed with certainty; and Josephus 
tells us that he himself was related to 
them, one of his ancestors having mar- 
ried a daughter of Jonathan, the first 
high-priest of the house. This As- 
monasan dynasty lasted from b.c. 153, 
till the family was damaged by intes- 
tine divisions and then destroyed by 
Herod the Great. 

6 Com p. 1 Mace. xi. 34. 

:7 1 Mace. x. 22-66. 



B.C. 153. High- Priesthood of Jonathan. 45 

Three years later (b.c. 147) the younger Demetrius (who 
afterward reigned as Demetrius II. Nieator), attempted to 
recover his father's kingdom; and his adherent Apollonius, 
governor of Ccelesyria, advanced to Jamnia and sent a chal- 
lenge to Jonathan. A battle was fought near Azotus, in 
which the infantry of Jonathan stood firm against the Syrian 
cavalry, who attacked them on all sides, till the fresh forces of 
his brother Simon routed the wearied horsemen, who fled to 
the temple of Dagon at Azotus. Jonathan burned the city 
and temple, with the men in it to the number of 8000 ; and 
after receiving the submission of Ascalon he returned to 
Jerusalem. 38 

A new enemy now took the field against Alexander, in the 
person of his father-in-law, Ptolemy, who marched into Syria, 
professedly as a friend. Jonathan met him at Joppa, and 
was favorably received, in spite of the accusations of his ene- 
mies. We need not here relate the alliance of Ptolemy with 
the young Demetrius, nor the defeat and death of Alexander, 
followed by the death of Ptolemy and the accession of Deme- 
trius II. ISTicator to the throne of Syria (b.c. 146). Jona- 
than's political tact not only brought him safe through this 
revolution, but gained new advantages for his country. Dur- 
ing the confusion, he had laid siege to the tower on "Zion, for 
which act his enemies accused him to the new king, who 
summoned him to Ptolemais. Leaving orders to press the 
siege, he went with a body of priests and elders, carrying 
splendid presents. He gained great favor with Demetrius, 
who confirmed him in the high-priesthood ; and a present of 
300 talents to the king secured for Judaea most of the privi- 
leges which had been promised by Demetrius I. 

The unpopularity of Demetrius, in consequence of his dis- 
banding the Syrian troops and replacing them by mercena- 
ries whom he had brought with him from Crete, opened the 
door to the schemes of Tryphon, who claimed the throne for 
Antiochus, son of Alexander Balas. Jonathan seized the op- 
portunity to obtain from Demetrius a promise of the evacu- 
ation of the long-contested tower, and sent him a body of 
3000 Jews, who saved his life in a tumult at Antioch. But 
the immediate danger was no sooner past, than Demetrius be* 
came estranged from Jonathan, and failed to fulfill his prom- 
ises. 39 

The defeat of Demetrius by Tryphon placed Antiochus 
VI. Theos on the throne (b.c. 144). Jonathan was confirmed 

s& 1 Mace. x. 67,89, 39 j Macc xi l _ 5S 



46 



The Maccabcean War oj Independence. Chap. IL 



in all his honors, and his brother Simon was made captain- 
general of the country from the Ladder of Tyre to the bor- 
ders of Egypt. Gaza and Bethsura were reduced, and Jon- 
athan defeated the partisans of Demetrius near the lake 
Gennesareth, 40 and again in the region of Hamath, and ad- 
vanced as far as Damascus; while Simon secured Ascalon 
and took Joppa. 41 Having renewed the alliance with Rome, 
and also, if we may trust our leading authority, with the 
Lacedaemonians, 43 Jonathan summoned the elders to fortify 
the cities of Judaea, to heighten the walls of Jerusalem, and 
to block out the tower on Zion by a great mound from the 
city and the temple. They were engaged on this work when 
Tryphon, who was plotting an usurpation, and regarded Jona- 
than as his chief obstacle, enticed him to Ptolemais, with a 
guard of only 1000 men, who were slain, and Jonathan was 
made prisoner. 43 

The enemies of the Jews now rose in every quarter ; but 
Simon was acknowledged as leader, and marched to Adida to 
meet Tryphon, who was advancing to invade Judaea. When 
Tryphon found with whom he had to do, he opened negotia- 
tions. Pretending that Jonathan had been seized for money 
due to the king, he promised to release him on the payment 
of 100 talents of silver and the delivery of two of his sons 
as hostages. Simon expected treachery ; but, lest his mo- 
tives should be mistaken, he accepted the terms. Tryphon 
verified his fears ; and, after being foiled by Simon in all his 
attempts to advance to Jerusalem and relieve the Syrian gar- 
rison, he marched into Gilead, still carrying Jonathan with 
him, and killed and buried him at Bascama. On his retiring 
to Antioch, Simon removed the bones of Jonathan to Modin, 
where he built a stately monument, with seven obelisks for 
Mattathias, his- wife, and their five sons ; the whole forming a 
sea-mark for passing ships. 44 

§ 9. Simon, surnamed Thassi, the second son of Mattathias, 
and the last survivor of his brethren, was high-priest from 
b.c. 143 to b.c. 135. His wisdom and valor had aided Judas 
and Jonathan through the long contest, which now needed 
only one last effort to secure its fruits. Tryphon, occupied 



40 1 Mace. xi. 54-74. 

41 1 Mace. xii. 24-34. 

42 1 Mace. xii. 1-23. The narra- 
tive is too circumstantial, with its act- 
tual documents, to be without founda- 
tion, unless it be a forged interpola- 
tion. But it provokes no small sus- 



picion to find the Lacedaemonians 
acknowledging themselves to be of 
the stock of Abraham. For a full dis- 
cussion of this difficult subject, see the 
Dictionary of the Bible, art. Sparta. 

41 I Mace. xii. 35-52. 

44 1 Mace, xiii. 1-30. 



B.C. 143. High- Priesthood of Simon Maccabceus. St 

with his own schemes of usurpation, seems to have renounced 
all attacks upon Judaea, except predatory incursions as he found 
opportunity. Simon employed himself in restoring the 
strongholds, and sought the friendship of Demetrius, who 
granted the independence of Judaea. The first year of Simon 
became an epoch from which people dated contracts and 
other instruments. 45 After taking Gaza, he broke off the last 
and heaviest link of the Syrian fetters by the reduction, 
through famine, of the tower of Jerusalem. 46 It was purified 
and solemnly entered on the 23d of the second month, ^Er. 
Seleuc. 171 (May, b.c. 142), which was made an annual festi- 
val. John, the second son of Simon, was made captain of 
the host, and was posted at the fortress of Gazara. 47 

Neither the capture of Demetrius by the Parthians, nor the 
completion of Tryphon's usurpation by the murder of Anti- 
ochus Theos, disturbed the peace which Judaea enjoyed under 
Simon. " Then did they till their ground in peace, and the 
earth gave her increase, and the trees of the field their fruit. 
The ancient men sat in all the streets, communing together of 
good things, and the young men put on glorious and warlike 
apparel. He provided victuals for the cities, and set in them 
all manner of munition, so that his honorable name was re- 
nowned unto the end of the world. He made peace in the 
land, and Israel rejoiced with great joy. . . . He beautified 
the sanctuary, and multiplied the vessels of the temple." 
While his internal government was just and firm, he opened 
up a commerce with Europe through the port of Joppa, and 
renewed the treaties with Rome and Lacedaemon. The let- 
ters in favor of the Jews, addressed by the Roman Senate to 
the states and islands of Greece and Asia Minor, and to the 
great potentates of Asia, including even the Parthian Arsaces, 
are a striking evidence of the wide diffusion of the Jewish 
race. 48 A lasting memorial of Simon's services and of the 
gratitude of his country was inscribed on tablets of brass and 
set up in Mount Zion. 49 

Tryphon's usurpation was at length challenged by Axti- 
ochtjs VII. Sidetes, second son of Demetrius I., and brother 
of the captive Demetrius II., who made unbounded promises 
to the Jews. He quickly defeated Tryphon, and besieged 

40 1 JVLacc. xiii. 33-42. It was not, the tower had stood, so that it. should 
however, till the fifth year of his son, no longer command the temple, has 
John Hyrcanus, that the final recog- affected the topography of Jerusalem, 
nition of Jewish independence was 47 1 Mace. xiii. 43-53. 
made by Svria. 48 1 Mace. xiv. 1-24, xv. 15-24. 

46 The leveling of the hill on which ! 40 1 Mane. xiv. 25-49. 



48 



The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap. II 



him in Dora, 6 * whither Simon sent him 2000 men, with 
abundance of money and arms. But Antiochus, from jeal- 
ousy of Simon's power and wealth, refused the proffered 
aid, and sent Athenobius to demand Joppa and Gazara/ 1 
besides 1000 talents for the places taken and the trib- 



50 Dora, one of those maritime cities 
which acquired a peculiar importance 
in the Maccabaean, Herodian, and 
Roman periods, was the ancient Doe, 
a royal city of the Canaanites (Josh. 
xi. 1, 2, xii. 23, xvii. 11; Judg. i. 
27; IK. iv. 11). It was probably 
the most southern settlement of the 
Phoenicians on the coast of Syria (Jos. 
Vit. 8; Ant. xv. 9, § 8). Josephus 
describes it as a maritime city, on 
the west border of Manasseh and the 
north border of Dan {Ant. v. 1, § 22, 
viii. 2, § 3, B. J. i. 7, § 7), near Mount i 
Carmel (c. Ap. ii. 10). One old au- i 
thor tells us that it was founded by ! 
Dorus a son of Neptune, while anoth- 
er affirms that it was built by the 
Phoenicians, because the neighboring 
rocky shore abounded in the small i 
shell-fish from which they got the 
purple dve (Steph. B. s. v. ; Reland, ! 
Pal p. 739 ; Judg. i. 27). The orig- I 
inal inhabitants were never expelled , 
but during the prosperous reigns of 
David and Solomon they were made 
tributary (Judg. i. 27, 28), and the 
latter monarch stationed at Dor one 
of his twelve purveyors (1 K. iv. 11). ! 
Tryphon, the murderer of Jonathan 
Maccabceus and usurper of the throne 
of Syria, having sought an asylum in 
Dor, the city was besieged and cap- 
tured by Antiochus Sidetes, as related 
in the text (1 Mace. xv. 11). It was : 
subsequently rebuilt by Gabinius, the ! 
Roman general, along with Samaria, | 
Ashdod, and other cities of Palestine j 
(Joseph. Ant. xiv. 5, § 3), and it re-j 
mained an important place during the ! 
early years of the Romau rule in ! 
Syria. 

Of the site of Dor there can be no j 
doubt. The descriptions of Josephus 
and Jerome are clear and full. The 
latter places it on the coast, "in the ! 
ninth mile from Crcsarea, on the way 
to Ptolemais " (Onom. .?. v. Dora), i 



Just at the point indicated is the 
small village of Tantura, probably an 
Arab corruption of Dora, consisting 
of about thirty houses, wholly con- 
structed of ancient materials. Three 
hundred yards north are low rocky 
mounds projecting into the sea, cov- 
ered with heaps of rubbish, massive 
foundations, and fragments of col- 
umns. The most conspicuous ruin 
is a section of an old tower, 30 ft. or 
more in height, which forms the land- 
mark of Tantura. On the south side 
of the promontory, opposite the vil- 
lage, is a little harbor, partially shel- 
tered by two or three small islands. 
A spur of Mount Carmel, steep and 
partially wooded, runs parallel to the 
coast line, at the distance of about a 
mile and a half. Between its base 
and the sandy beach is a rich and 
beautiful plain — this is possibly the 
"border," "coast," or "region" of 
Dor (Josh. xi. 2, xii. 23 ; 1 K. iv. 11) 
referred to in Scripture. 

51 Gazara is another place frequent- 
ly mentioned in the wars ot the Mac- 
cabees, and of great importance in the 
operations of both parties. Its first 
introduction is as a stronghold, in 
which Timotheus took refuge after 
his defeat by Judas, and which for 
four days resisted the efforts of the 
infuriated Jews (2 Mace. x. 32-36). 
One of the first steps of Bacchides, 
after getting possession of Judasa, was 
to fortify Bethsura and Gazara and 
the citadel (&Kpa) at Jerusalem (1 
Mace. ix. 52) ; and the same names 
are mentioned when Simon in his 
turn recovered the country (xiv. 7, 33, 
31, 36, xv. 28). So important was 
it, that Simon made it the residence 
of his son John as general-in-ehief 
of the Jewish army (xiii. 53, xvi. 1). 

There is every reason to believe 
that Gazara was the same place as the 
more ancient Gezbr or Gazbk. The 



B.C. 135. High- Priesthood of John Hyrcanus. 49 

ute withheld from Syria. Simon refused, but offered 100 
talents as a compensation for Joppa and Gazara ; and Antio- 
chus commenced the last war which the Maccabees had to 
wage with Syria. While the king pursued Tryphon, who had 
escaped from Dora, his general, Cendebeus, appointed com- 
mander of the sea-coast, took up his post at Jamnia, and 
harassed the Jews with constant attacks. 52 Simon, being noAv 
too old to take the field, sent his two eldest sons, Judas and, 
John, with 20,000 men and some horse, who gained a com- 
plete victory over the vast forces of Cendebeus. After this 
success, it might have been expected that Simon would have 
died in a peaceful old age ; but he was not exempted from 
the violent end of all his brothers. On a progress through 
the country with his sons Judas and Mattathias, he arrived at 
Jericho, where he was received by the governor, Ptolemy the 
son of Abubus, his own son-in-law, and a man of great wealth. 
In pursuance of a design to make himself master of Judaaa, 
Ptolemy caused Simon and his two sons to be slain treacher- 
ously at a banquet. John, who was at Gazara, warned in 
time, slew the men who were sent to kill him 53 (b.c. 135). 

With the death of the last of the sons of Mattathias, we 
lose the authentic record of the First Booh of Maccabees, and 
Josephus becomes almost our only guide. The acts of John 
Hyrcanus were written in the Chronicles of his Priesthood, 
a work older than the First Booh of Maccabees.^ 

§ 10. John Hyrcanus, the second son of Simon, under 
whom he had been commander of the army, succeeded his 
father in the priesthood and government, which he held for 
thirty years (b.c. 135-106). He at once went from Gazara to 
Jerusalem ; and after the people had accepted him for their 
leader, he marched against Jericho. Ptolemy, who held a 
strong fort near the city, tried to deter him from an assault 
by savage cruelties to his mother and brothers. They were 
scourged upon the walls, whence Ptolemy threatened to throw 
them headlong; and though John's mother exhorted him to 
disregard their sufferings, the intended effect was produced. 
John retired ; the siege, after being protracted for a year, was 

name is the same as that which the ] (1 Mace. iv. 15). Gazara also is con- 



LXX. use for Gezer in the Old Testa- 
ment; and more than this, the indi- 
cations of the position of both are 
very much in accordance. As David 
smote the Philistines from Gibeon to 
Gezer, so Judas defeats Gorgias at 
Emmaus, and pursues him to Gazara 

c 



stantly mentioned in connection with 
the sea-coast — Joppa and Jamnia (xv. 
28, 35, iv. 15), and with the Philis- 
tine plain, Azotus, Adasa, etc. (iv. 15, 
vii. 45, xiv. 34). 

52 1 Mace. xv. 53 1 Mace. xvi. 

54 1 Mace. xv. 24. 



50 The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap. II. 

abandoned ; and Ptolemy fled to Philadelphia beyond the Jor- 
dan, after which we hear of him no more. Meanwhile the 
army of Antiochus proved too strong for John. He was be- 
sieged in Jerusalem, and was compelled by famine to give up 
the city, on the conditions of dismantling the fortifications and 
returning to a tributary state (e.g. 133). The moderation of 
Antiochus on this occasion, and his respect for the Jewish re- 
ligion, gained him the surname of Eusebes (the Pious). Hyr- 
canus was treated by him with favor, and attended him on the 
expedition which the king made against Partjiia ostensibly to 
release his imprisoned brother Demetrius Nicator (b.c. 128). 
The death of Antiochus in this campaign gave an opportuni- 
ty for recovering the independence of Judaea, which was never 
again subjugated by Syria. The latter monarchy indeed be- 
came, till its absorption into the Roman empire (b.c. 65), the 
victim of such dynastic revolutions, that its history is hence- 
forth as unimportant for us, as it is intricate to follow. The 
Jews once more entered on a course of conquest, limited in- 
deed, but most gratifying to their pride in the humiliation oi 
their ancient and more recent enemies. After carrying his 
arms into the region east of Jordan, where he took two cities, 
Hyrcanus subdued both Idumaea and Samaria, the hatred ri- 
vals of Israel before and after the Captivity, The Iduinaeans 
were compelled to adopt the Jewish religion, and to receive 
circumcision ; and the conquest was so complete that the king- 
dom of Idumaea disappears from history : and yet the uncon- 
querable race of Edom soon proved the inheritance of its fore- 
father's blessing by giving a new dynasty to Judaea. In Sa- 
maria, John Hyrcanus completed his triumph by destroying 
the hated schismatic temple on Mount Gerizim. The sanctu- 
ary on Mount Zion thus regained its pre-eminence in the Holy 
Land, and the Jews once more imposed upon the Samaritans 
the sacred law, " that Jerusalem is the place where men ought 
to worship." The reduction of Samaria was effected by Arte* 
tobulus and Antigonus, the sons of John Hyrcanus, in the 26th 
year of his rule (b.c. 109). The city of Samaria was utterly 
destroyed, and its site converted into pools of water from its 
own abundant springs. Most of Galilee submitted to the au- 
thority of the high-priest, who again renewed the alliance oi 
his family with Rome. Of his buildings at Jerusalem, the 
most important was the Tower of Baris, at the 1ST.W. corner 
of the enclosure of the Temple. It was afterward the Anto- 
nia of Herod. 

Thus the Holy Land, under the name of Judaea, was restored 
to its ancient limits, and the people enjoyed their worship, 



B.C. 1O6 Death of John Hyrcanus. 5'i 

under a race of priest-princes, who held their authority in sub* 
mission to the divine law. But no human affairs ever reached 
the climax of prosperity without taking the downward turn ; 
and it was taken with frightful rapidity by the successors of 
John Hyrcanus, who displayed a personal ambition unknown 
to the pure patriotism of the Maccabees, and were soon en- 
gaged in fierce contests for the supreme power. Then began 
those family murders, which form the most horrid feature of 
Oriental despotism, and which reached their climax under 
Herod. One chief source of these evils was the rupture of 
the religious unity of the nation, by the rise of the opposing 
sects of the Pharisees and Sadducees, which, springing 
from a doubtful origin, and from causes long at work, had be- 
come established during the government of John Hyrcanus. 5 * 
Toward the end of his reign, Hyrcanus, provoked by an in- 
sult from one of the leading Pharisees, joined the party of the 
Sadducees, a step which left a heritage of trouble to his suc- 
cessors. " The cause of this rupture," says Dean Milman, " is 
singularly characteristic of Jewish manners. During a ban- 
quet, at which the chiefs of the ruling sect were present, 
Hyrcanus demanded their judgment on his general conduct 
and administration of affairs, which he professed to have reg- 
ulated by the great principle of justice (the righteousness 
which was the watch- word of the Pharisees), and by strict ad- 
herence to the tenets of their sect. The Pharisees, with 
general acclamation, testified their approval of all his proceed- 
ings ; one voice alone, that of Eleazar, interrupted the general 
harmony : — ' If you are a just man, abandon the high-priest- 
hood, for which you are disqualified by the illegitimacy of 
your birth.' The mother of Hyrcanus had formerly, it was 
said, though, according to Josephus, falsely, been taken cap- 
tive, and thus exposed to the polluting embraces of a heathen 
master. The indignant Hyrcanus demanded the trial of Elea- 
zar for defamation. By the influence of the Pharisees he was 
shielded, and escaped with scourging and imprisonment. Hyr- 
canus, enraged at this unexpected hostility, listened to the rep< 
resentations of Jonathan, a Sadducee, who accused the rival 
faction of a conspiracy to overawe the sovereign power ; and 
from that time he entirely alienated himself from the Phari 
saic councils." 

John Hyrcanus died exactly sixty years, or the space of tw<5 
complete generations, after his grandfather Mattathias (b.c 
106). As he began a new generation of the Maccabaean house 

06 See Appendix to Book L, Sects of the Jews. 



52 The Ifaccabcean War of Independence. Chap.1i, 

so was he the first who escaped the violent end to which his 
father and uncles had succumbed. His death marks the transit 
tion from the theocratic commonwealth, under the Maccabaean 
feaders, to the Asmonaean kingdom, which was established by 
his son Judas or Aristobulus, whose Greek name is but too 
significant of the hellenizing character of the new era. 

The only two of the first generation of the Maccabaean fam- 
ily, who did not obtain to the leadership of their countrymen 
like their brothers, yet shared their fate — Eleazar by a noble 
act of self-devotion, John, apparently the eldest brother, by 
treachery. The sacrifice of the family was complete ; and 
probably history offers no parallel to the undaunted courage 
with which such a band dared to face death, one by one, in 
the maintenance of a holy cause. The result was worthy of 
the sacrifice. The Maccabees inspired a subject-people with 
independence ; they found a few personal followers, and they 
left a nation. 

§11. The great outlines of the Maccabaean contest, wilich 
are somewhat hidden in the annals thus briefly epitomized, 
admit of being traced with fair distinctness, though many 
points must always remain obscure, from our ignorance of the 
numbers and distribution of the Jewish population, and of the 
general condition of the people at the time. The disputed 
succession to the Syrian throne (b.c. 153) was the political 
turning-point of the struggle, which may thus be divided into 
two great periods. During the first period (b.c. 168-153) 
the patriots maintained their cause w^ith varying success 
against the whole strength of Syria: during the second (b.c. 
153-139), they were courted by rival factions, and their inde- 
pendence was acknowledged from time to time, though pledges 
given in times of danger were often broken when the danger 
was over. The paramount importance of Jerusalem is con- 
spicuous throughout the whole war. The loss of the Holy City 
reduced the patriotic party at once to the condition of mere 
guerrilla bands, issuing from " the mountains " or " the wilder- 
ness," to make sudden forays on the neighboring towns. 
This was the first aspect of the war ; 56 and the scene of the 
early exploits of Judas was the hill-country to the N.E. of Je- 
rusalem, from which he drove the invading armies at the 
famous battle-fields of Beth-horon and Emmaus (Mcopolis). 
The occupation of Jerusalem closed the first act of the war 
(b.c. 166) ; and after this Judas made rapid attacks on every 
side — in Idumaea, Amnion, Gilead, Galilee — but he made no 



1 2 Mace. viii. 1-7 ; comp. 1 Mace. ii. 45. 



B.C. 106. Review of the Maccabcean Contest 53 

permanent settlement in the countries which he ravaged. 
Bethsura was fortified as a defense of Jerusalem on the south ; 
but the authority of Judas seems to have been limited to the 
immediate neighborhood of Jerusalem, though the influence 
of his name extended more widely. 37 On the death of Judas, 
the patriots were reduced to as great distress as at their first 
rising ; and as Bacchides held the keys of the " mountain of 
Ephraim," they were forced to find a refuge in the lowlands 
near Jericho, and after some slight successes Jonathan was 
allowed to settle at Michmash undisturbed, though the whole 
country remained absolutely under the sovereignty of Syria. 
So far it seemed that little had been gained, when the contest 
between Alexander Balas and Demetrius I. opened a new pe- 
riod (b.c. 153). Jonathan was empowered to raise troops; 
the Jewish hostages were restored; many of the fortresses 
were abandoned; and apparently a definite district was as- 
signed to the government of the high-priest. The former un- 
fruitful conflicts at length produced their full harvest. The 
defeat at Eleasa, like the Swiss St. Jacob, had shown the worth 
of men who could face all odds, and no price seemed too great 
to secure their aid. When the Jewish leaders had once ob- 
tained legitimate power, they proved able to maintain it, 
though their general success was checkered by some reverses. 
The solid power of the national party was seen by the slight 
effect which was produced by the treacherous murder of Jon- 
athan. Simon was able at once to occupy his place and carry 
out his plans. The Syrian garrison was withdrawn from Je- 
rusalam; Joppa was occupied as a sea-port; and "four gov- 
ernments " 58 — probably the central parts of the old kingdom 
of Judah, with three districts taken from Samaria 59 — were 
subjected to the sovereign authority of the high-priest. 

The war, thus brought to a noble issue, if less famous, is 
not less glorious than any of those in which a few brave men 
have successfully maintained the cause of freedom or religion 
against overpowering might. The answer of Judas to those 
who counseled retreat 60 was as true-hearted as that of Leon- 
idas; and the exploits of his followers will bear favorable 
comparison with those of the Swiss, or the Dutch, or the 
Americans. It would be easy to point out parallels in Mac- 
eabsean history to the noblest traits of patriots and martyrs in 
other countries ; but it may be enough here to claim for the 
sontest the attention which it rarely receives. It seems, in« 

67 1 Mace. vii. 50, ?} yfj 'Ioi>da. 5b rkocaptq voiiol,l Mace. xi. 57, xiii. 37. 
59 1 Mace. x. 38, 39. 60 1 Mace. ix. 10. 



154 The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chai\ ii 

deed, as if the indifference of classical writers were perpetu- 
ated in our own days, though there is no struggle — not even 
the wars of Joshua or David — which is more profoundly in- 
teresting to the Christian student. For it is not only in 
their victory over external difficulties that the heroism of the 
Maccabees is conspicuous: their real success was as much 
imperiled by internal divisions as by foreign force. They had 
to contend on the one hand against open and subtle attempts 
to introduce Greek customs, and on the other against an ex- 
treme Pharisaic party, which is seen from time to time 
opposing their counsels. 01 And it was from Judas and those 
whom he inspired that the old faith received its last develop- 
ment and final impress before the coming of our Lord. 

For that view of the Maccabaean war, which regards it only 
as a civil and not as a religious conflict, is essentially one- 
sided. If there were no other evidence than the book of 
Daniel — whatever opinion be held as to the date of it — that 
alone would show how deeply the noblest hopes of the theoc- 
racy were centred in the success of the struggle. When the 
feelings of the nation were thus again turned with fresh pow- 
er to their ancient faith, we might expect that there would be 
a new creative epoch in the national literature; or, if the 
form of Hebrew composition was already fixed by sacred 
types, a prophet or psalmist would express the thoughts of 
the new age after the models of old time.. Yet in part at 
least the leaders of Maccabaean times felt that they were sep- 
arated by a real chasm from the times of the kingdom or of the 
exile. If they looked for a prophet in the future, they 
acknowledged that the spirit of prophecy was not among 
them. The volume of the prophetic writings was completed, 
and, as far as appears, no one ventured to imitate its contents. 
But the Hagiographa, though they were already long fixed as 
a definite collection, were not equally far removed from imi- 
tation. The apocalyptic visions of Daniel served as a pattern 
for the visions incorporated in the book of Enoch; and it has 
been commonly supposed that the Psalter contains composi- 
tions of the Maccabaean date. This supposition, which is at 
variance with the best evidence which can be obtained on the 
history of the Canon, can only be received upon the clearest 
internal proof; and it may well be questioned whether the 
hypothesis is not as much at variance with sound interpreta- 
tion as with the history of the Canon. 62 

§ 12. The history of the Maccabees does not contain much 

61 1 Mace. vii. 12-18. ™ See Old Testament History, Appendix to Book V. 



B.C. 106. 



Steadfastness to the Law. 



55 



which illustrates in detail the religious or social progress oi 
the Jews. It is obvious that the period must not only have 
intensified old beliefs, but also have called out elements which 
were latent in them. One doctrine at least, that of a resur- 
rection, and even of a material resurrection, 63 was brought out 
into the most distinct apprehension by suffering. "It is 
good to look for the hope from God, to be raised up again by 
him," was the substance of the martyr's answer to his judge ; 
" as for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life." 64 " Our 
brethren," says another, " have fallen, having endured a short 
pain leading to everlasting life, being under the covenant of 
God." 66 And as it was believed that an interval elapsed be- 
tween death and judgment, the dead were supposed to be in 
some measure still capable of profiting by the intercession of 
the living. Thus much is certainly expressed in the famous 
passage, 2 Mace. xii. 43-45, though the secondary notion of a 
purgatorial state is in no way implied in it. On the other 
hand it is not very clear how far the future judgment was 
supposed to extend. If the punishment of the wicked hea- 
then in another life had formed a definite article of belief, it 
might have been expected to be put forward more prominent- 
ly, 66 though the passages in question may be understood of 
sufferings after death, and not only of earthly sufferings ; but 
for the apostate Jews there was a certain judgment in re- 
serve. 67 The firm faith in the righteous providence of God 
shown in the chastening of his people, as contrasted with his 
neglect of other nations, is another proof of the widening 
view of the spiritual world, which is characteristic of the 
epoch. 68 The lessons of the captivity were reduced to moral 
teaching; and in the same way the doctrine of the ministry 
of angels assumed an importance which is without parallel 
except in patriarchal times. It was perhaps from this cause 
also that the Messianic hope was limited in its range. The 
vivid perception of spiritual truths hindered the spread of a 
hope which had been cherished in a material form; and a 
pause, as it were, was made, in which men gained new points 
of sight from which to contemplate the old promises. 

The various glimpses of national life which can be gained 
during the period, show on the whole a steady adherence to 
the Mosaic law. Probably the law was never more rigor- 



63 2 Mace. xiv. 46. 

64 ava.GTa.aiQ eig Z,wi}v, 2 Mace. vii. 
14; comp. vi. 26, xiv. 46. 

65 2 Mace. vii. 36, ttovov cnwaov 



66 2 Mace. vii. 17, 19, 35, etc. 
6T 2 Mace. vi. 26. 
68 2 Mace. iv. 16, 17, v. 17-20, vi 
12-16, etc» 



56 



The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap. II. 



ously fulfilled. The importance of the Antiochian persecu- 
tion in fixing the Canon of the Old Testament deserves 
notice. The books of the law were specially sought out for 
destruction ; 69 and their distinctive value was in consequence 
proportionately increased. To use the words of 1 Mace, 
"the holy books in our hands" were felt to make all other 
comfort superfluous. 70 The strict observance of the Sab- 
bath 71 and of the Sabbatical year, 72 the law of the Nazarites, 73 
and the exemptions from military service, 74 the solemn prayer 
and fasting, 75 carry us back to early times. The provision 
for the maimed, the aged, and the bereaved, 76 was in the spirit 
of the law; and the new feast of the dedication was a hom- 
age to the old rites, 77 while it was a proof of independent life. 
The interruption of the succession to the high-priesthood was 
the most important innovation which was made, and one 
which prepared the way for the dissolution of the state. 
After various arbitrary changes, the office was left vacant for 
seven years upon the death of Alcimus. The last descendant 
of Jozadak (Onias), in whose family it had been for nearly 
four centuries, fled to Egypt, and established a schismatic 
worship ; and at last, when the support of the Jews became 
important, the Maccabsean leader, Jonathan, of the family of 
Joarib, was elected to the dignity by the nomination of the 
Syrian king, 78 whose will was confirmed, as it appears, by the 
voice of the people. 79 

Little can be said of the condition of literature and the arts 
which has not been already anticipated. In common inter- 
course the Jews used the Aramaic dialect which was estab- 
lished after the return : this was " their own language ;" 80 but 
it is evident from the narrative quoted that they understood 
Greek, which must have spread widely through the influence 
of Syrian officers. There is not, however, the slightest evi- 
dence that Greek was employed in Palestinian literature till a 
much later date. The description of the monument which 
was erected by Simon at Modin in memory of his family, 81 is 
the only record of the architecture of the time. The descrip- 
tion is obscure, but in some features the structure appears to 
have presented a resemblance to the tombs of Porsena and 



69 1 Mace. i. 56, 57, iii. 48. 

70 1 Mace. xii. 9. 

nl 1 Mace. ii. 32; 2 Mace. vi. 11, 
viii. 26, etc. 

72 1 Mace. vi. 53. 

73 1 Mace. iii. 49. 

74 1 Mace. iii. 56. 



75 1 Mace. iii. 47 ; 2 Mace. x. 25, 
etc. 76 2 Mace. viii. 28, 30. 

77 2 Mace. i. 9. 78 1 Mace. x. 20. 
70 Comp. 1 Mace. xiv. 35. 

80 2 Mace. vii. 8, 21, 27, xii. 37. 

81 1 Mace. xiii. 27-30. Notes, etc 
(B). 



B.C. iog. Maccabcean Coins. 57 

the Curiatii, 83 and perhaps to one still found in Idumaea. An 
oblong basement, of which the two chief faces were built of 
polished white marble, 83 supported " seven pyramids in a line 
ranged one- against another," equal in number to the members 
of the Maccabsean family, including Simon himself. To these 
he added other works of art (prixavfi para), placing round (on 
the two chief faces ?) great columns ( Josephus adds, each of 
a single block), bearing "trophies of arms, and sculptured 
ships, which might be visible from the sea below." The lan- 
guage of 1 Mace, and Josephus implies that these columns 
were placed upon the basement, otherwise it might be sup- 
posed that the columns rose only to the height of the basement 
supporting the trophies on the same level as the pyramids. 
So much at least is evident, that the characteristics of this 
work — and probably of later Jewish architecture generally — ■ 
bore closer affinity to the styles of Asia Minor and Greece 
than of Egypt or the East; a result which would follow 
equally from the Syrian dominion and the commerce which 
Simon opened by the Mediterranean. 84 

The only recognized relics of the time are the coins which 
bear the name of " Simon," or " Simon Prince (Nasi) of 
Israel," in Samaritan letters. The privilege of a national coin- 
age was granted to Simon by Antiochus VII. Sidetes ; 85 and 
numerous examples occur which have the dates of the first, 
second, third, and fourth years of the liberation of Jerusalem 
(Israel, Zion) ; and it is a remarkable confirmation of their 
genuineness, that in the first year the name Zion does not 
occur, as the citadel was not recovered till the second year of 
Simon's supremacy, while after the second year Zion alone is 
found. 86 The privilege was first definitely accorded in b.c. 
140, while the first year of Simon was b.c. 143 ; 87 but this dis- 
crepancy causes little difficulty, as it is not unlikely that the 
concession of Antiochus was made in favor of a practice already 
existing. No date is given later than the fourth year, but 
coins of Simon occur without a date, which may belong to the 
last four years of his life. The emblems which the coins bear 
have generally a connection with Jewish history — a vine-leaf, 
a cluster of grapes, a vase (of manna?), a trifid flowering rod, 
a palm-branch surrounded by a wreath of laurel, a lyre, 88 a 
bundle of branches symbolic of the feast of tabernacles. The 
coins issued in the last war of independence by Barcochba 



82 Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 13. 
** Joseph. Ant. xiii. 6, § 5. 
84 1 Mace. xiv. 5. 

C 2 



85 1 Mace. xv. 6, k6\i\xci 'iSiov vop- 
KTfia ry x^- 

80 Bayer, de Numnns, -171. 

87 1 Mace. xiii. 42. Sb lb- xiii. 51. 



58 



The Maccabcean War of Independence. Chap. IL 



repeat many of these emblems, and there is considerable diffi- 
culty in distinguishing the two series. The authenticity of 
all the Maccabaean coins was impugned by Tychsen, 89 but on 
insufficient grounds. He was answered by Bayer, whose ad- 
mirable essays 90 give the most complete account of the coins, 
though he reckons some apparently later types as Maccabaean. 
Eckhel 91 has given a good account of the controversy, and an 
accurate description of the chief types of the coins. 92 

The authorities for the Maccabaean history have been given 
already. Of modern works, that of Ewald is by far the best. 
Herzfeld has collected a mass of details, chiefly from late 
sources, which are interesting and sometimes valuable ; but 
the student of the period can not but feel how difficult it is to 
realize it as a whole. Indeed, it seems that the instinct was 
true which named it from one chief hero. In this last stage 
of the history of Israel, as in the first, all life came from the 
leader ; and it is the greatest glory of the Maccabees that, while 
they found at first all turn upon their personal fortunes, they 
left a nation strong enough to preserve an independent faith 
till the typical kingdom gave place to a universal Church. 93 



89 Die Unachtheit d. Jud. Munzen 
. . . bewiesen . . . O. G. Tychsen, 
1779. 

90 De Nummis Hebr. Samaiitanis^ 
Val. Ed. 1781 ; Vindicice . . . 1790. 

81 Doctr. Numm. vol. iii. p. 455, ff. 



02 Respecting the value of these 
coins, see the Tables appended to 
the Old Testament History. 

93 On the "Books of the Macca- 
bees," see Appendix to Book I., The 
Apocrypha. 




Silver Coin of the Maccabees. 



Chap. IL 



Notes and Illustrations, 



69 



NOTES AKD ILLUSTBATIONS. 

(A.) The Asmon^an Family. 

Chasmon (" of the son3 of Joarib," comp. 1 Chron. xxit, %% 

I 
Jolianan ('l&>ai/v»i?)> 

Simeon (2vfj.ewv, Simon. Comp. 2 Pet. i. 1). 

Mattathias (Matthias, Joseph. B. J. i. 1, 5 3). 
1 167 B.C. 



Johanan (Johannes) Simon Judas Eleazar Jonathan 

(G-addis), (Thassi), (Maccabams), (Avaran), (Apphus), 

I** Joseph" in 2 Mace. viiL 22). 1 135 b.c. 1 161 b.c. 1 163 B.C. 1 143 b,c. 

1 161 B.C. j 

Judas, Johannes Hyrcanus I., Mattathiaa, Daughter=PtoIema3ns, 
1 135 b.o. 1 106 B.c. 1 135 c.c. (1 Mace. xvi. 11, 12). 

I 

II! II 

Salome, = Aristobulos I. Antigonus, Jannaeus = Alexandra. Son. Sea 

tAlexandra), t 105 b.c 1 105 b.c. Alexander, | 

t TS B-c. I 
I 



Hyrcanus II. 
t 30 b.c. 



Aristobulus II., 
t 49 B.C 



Alexandra, = Alexander, 
t2SB.c. | t 49 b.c. 



Antigonus, 
t37B.c, 



Mariamne, = Herod the Great. 
t 29 b.c. 



Aristobulos. 
t 35 B.a 



(B.) MODIN AND THE SEPUL- 
CHRE OF THE MACCABEES. 

This place is not mentioned in 
either Old or New Testament, though 
rendered immortal hy its connec- 
tion with the history of the Jews] 
in the interval between the two. It 
was the native city of the Maccabse- \ 
an family (1 Mace. xiii. 25), and as | 
a necessary consequence contained 
their ancestral sepulchre (ii. 70, ix. ! 
19). Mattathias himself, and sub- 
sequently his sons Judas and Jona- 



than, were buried in the family 
tomb, and over them Simon erected 
a structure which is minutely de- 
scribed in the Book of Maccabees 
(xiii. 25-30), and, with less detail, 
by Josephus {Ant. xiii. 6, § 6). (See 
below S) 

At Modin the Maccabgean armies 
encamped on the eve of two of their 
most memorable victories — that of 
Judas over Antiochus Eupator (2 
Mace. xiii. 14), and that of Simon 
over Cendebeus (1 Mace. xvi. 4) — • 
the last battle of the veteran chief 



60 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. 11 



before his assassination. The only 
indication of the position of the place 
to be gathered from the above no- 
tices is contained in the last, from 
which we may infer that it was near 
" the plain," i. e., the great maritime 
lowland of Philistia (ver. 5). By 
Eusebius and Jerome it is specified 
as nearDiospolis, i. e., Lydda ; while 
the Mishna states that it was 15 
(Roman) miles from Jerusalem. At 
the same time the description of the 
monument seems to imply (though 
for this see below) that the spot was 
so lofty as to be visible from the sea, 
and so near that even the details of 
the sculpture were discernible there- 
from. All these conditions, except- 
ing the last, are tolerably fulfilled in 
either of the two sites called Latrun 
and Kubdb. The former of these is, 
by the shortest road — that through 
Wady Ali — exactly 15 Roman miles 
from Jerusalem ; it is about 8 En- 
glish miles from Lydd, 15 from the 
Mediterranean, and 9 or 10 from 
the river Rubin, on which it is 
probable that Cedron — the position 
of Cendebeus in Simon's battle — 
stood. Kubdb is a couple of miles 
further from Jerusalem, and there- 
fore nearer to Lydd and to the sea, 
on the most westerly spur of the 
hills of Benjamin. Both are lofty, 
and both apparently — Latrun cer- 
tainly — command a view of the 
Mediterranean. In favor of Latrun 
are the extensive ancient remains 
with which the top of the hill is said 
to be covered (Rob. B. R. iii. 151), 
though of their age and particulars 
we have at present no accurate in- 
formation. Kubdb appears to pos- 
sess no rains, but on the other hand 



its name may retain a trace of tht 
monument. 

The mediaeval and modern tradi- 
tion places Modin at Soba, an emi- 
nence south of Kuriet cl-enab ; but 
this being not more than 7 miles 
from Jerusalem, while it is as much 
as 25 from Lydd and 30 from tho 
sea, and also far removed from the 
plain of Philistia, is at variance with 
every one of the conditions implied 
in the records. 

The descriptions of the tomb by 
the author of the Book of Maccabees 
and Josephus, who had both appar- 
ently seen it, will be most conven- 
iently compared by being printed 
together. 



1 Mace. xiii. 27-30. 
" And Simon made 
a building over the 
sepulchre of his fa- 
ther and his brethren, 
and raised it aloft to 
view with polished 
stone behind and be- 
fore. And he set up 
upon it seven pyra- 
mids, one against an- 
other, for his father 
and his mother and 
his four brethren. 
And on these he 
made engines of war, 
and set great pillars 
round about, and on 
the pillars he made 
suits of armor for 
a perpetual memory ; 
and by the suits of 
armor ships carved, 
so that they might 
be seen by all that 
sail on the sea. This 
sepulchre he made at 
Modin, and it stands 
unto this day." 



Jos. Ant. xiii. 6, § 6. 

"And Simon built 
a very large monu- 
ment to his father 
and his brethren of 
white and polished 
stone. And he raised 
it up to a great and 
conspicuous height, 
and threw cloisters 
around, and set up 
pillars of a single 
stone, a work won- 
derful to behold : and 
near to these he 
built seven pyramids 
to his parents and 
his brothers, one for 
each, terrible to be- 
hold both for .«ize 
and beauty. 



And these things are 
preserved even to this 
day." 



The monuments are said by Euse- 
bius (Onom.) to have been still shown 
when he wrote— a. d. circa 320. 




Coin of Antiochus VI. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ASMONJEAN KINGDOMS. B.C. 106—37. 

Change for the worse in Jewish history — Aristobulus I. assumes the 
royal title — Conquest of Iturasa — Deaths of Antigonus and Aristobulus. 
§ 2. Alexander Jann^eus — Judaea invaded by Ptolemy Lathyrus, 
and rescued by Cleopatra — Conquests and defeats of Alexander — His 
civil war, and dying reconciliation with the Pharisees — Honors to his 
memory. § 3. Alexandra, with Hyrcanus II. as high-priest— As- 
cendancy of the Pharisees, undermined by a secret opposition. § 4. 
Hyrcanus II. is deposed by his brother Aristobulus — Defeat of the 
party of the Pharisees. § 5. Aristobulus II. — Kise of Antipater — 
Hyrcanus flies to Aretas, King of Arabia, who besieges Jerusalem — 
The paschal lambs — The prayer of Onias. § 6. Intervention of Rome 
— The Mithridatic War — Tigranes expelled from Syria by Lucullus 
— Antiochus XIII. deposed, and Syria made a Roman province — 
Pompey as arbiter between the Jewish princes — Resistance of Aris- 
tobulus — Pompey takes Jerusalem, profanes the Temple, and carries off 
Aristobulus to Rome. § 7. Hyrcanus II. restored to the high-priest- 
hood — Revolt of Alexander put down by Gabinius — New Constitution 
— The five Great Sanhedrims — Escape and defeat of Aristobulus and 
Antigonus — New revolt and defeat of Alexander — Crassus plunders 
the Temple. § 8. The Great Civil War of Rome — Deaths of Aristo- 
bulus and Alexander — Hyrcanus ethnarch and Antipater procurator of 
Judaea — Family of Antipater — Herod governor of Galilee — His eaidy 
boldness. § 9. Death of Caesar — Judaea oppressed by Cassius — Mur- 
der of Antipater and revenge of Herod — Unsuccessful risings of the 
stricter Jews — Herod marries Mariamne, the granddaughter of Hyr- 
canus, and defeats Antigonus — Mark Antony makes Herod and Phas- 
ael tetrarchs of Palestine — The Parthian Invasion — Flight of Herod 
— Death of Phasael and mutilation of Hyrcanus. § 10. Nominal reign 
of Antigonus — Herod named by the triumvirs King of Judaea — His 
war with Antigonus — Capture of Jerusalem — Execution of Antigonus 
— End of the Asmon^ean Dynasty. 



§ 1. No successive pages of history present a more painful 
contrast, than those recording the liberation of Judaea by tho 



62 



The Asmoncean Kingdoms. 



Chap. IIL 



Maccabees, and its misgoverment by their posterity. In the 
prosperous reign of John Hyrcanus, we see the seeds of that 
unholy ambition and religious discord, which broke out im- 
mediately upon his death. Hyrcanus had left the civil govern- 
ment by will to his wife ; — an example, among many soon to 
be met with, of the rise of those female influences which 
have always played an important part in eastern despotisms; 
-—but it was seized, with the high-priesthood, by his eldest 
son Aristobulus, who imprisoned his mother and starved her 
to death. Aristobulus I. (b.c. 106-105), assumed the dia- 
dem 1 and the title of king, and founded the Asmonsean 
monarchy, which lasted just 70 years ; but the whole period 
was one of internal dissension, and for nearly its latter half 
the interference of the Romans made the royalty little more 
than nominal. 

The brief reign of Aristobulus is marked by one important 
conquest, and a series of domestic tragedies. He subdued 
Itursea 2 (afterward called Auranitis), a district east of Jordan, 
at the foot of Antilibanus ; and the inhabitants submitted to 
circumcision under the threat of banishment. A dangerous 
illness compelled him to return, leaving behind his favorite 
brother Antigonus ; his other three brothers having been 
shut up in prison. Antigonus soon completed the conquest, 
and came back to Jerusalem. His appearance in arms, to 
pay his devotions in the Temple, was used by the queen 
Alexandra and the women of the court to rouse his brother's 
jealousy. Aristobulus summoned him to come unarmed into 
his presence, and stationed soldiers in the subterranean 
passage from the Temple to the tower of Baris with orders 
to dispatch him if he appeared in arms. Antigonus was 
drawn into the trap by treacherous messengers, who told 
him that the king wished to see his splendid armor. The 
dying king, horror-struck at the crime, vomited blood j the 



1 This word, now used in a vague 
poetical sense, had a specific mean- 
ing among the nations of antiquity. 
The diadem was a fillet of silk, two 
inches broad, bound round the head 
and tied behind, the invention of 
which is attributed to Liber (Plin. 
II. N. rii. 56, 57). Its color was 
generally white (Tac. An. vi. 37; 
Sil. Ital. xvi. 241) ; sometimes, how- 
ever, it was of blue, like that of Da- 
rius, ecerulea fascia albo distincta (Q. 
Curt. iii. 3, vi. 20 ; Xen. Cyr. viii. 3, 
§ 13) ; and it was sown with pearls or 



other gems (Gibbon, i. 392 ; Zech. 
ix. 16), and enriched with gold (Rev. 
ix. 7). It was peculiarly the mark of 
Oriental sovereigns (1 Mace. xiii. 82, 
to Siddrj/xa rfjg 'Aaiag), and hence the 
deep offense caused by the attempt 
of Caesar to substitute it for the laurel 
crown appropriated to Roman em- 
perors. 

2 It derived its name from Jetur, a 
son of Ishmael, who gave his name, 
like the rest of his brethren, to tho 
little province he colonized (Gen» 
xxv. 15, 16) •* 



B.C. 105-78. Alexander Jannceiis. 63 

slave who bore away the basin slipped upon the spot where 
Antigonus had been killed, and the blood of the two brothers 
was mingled upon the pavement — too true an emblem of the 
later history of the Asmonaeans. The king compelled his 
attendants to tell him the cause of the consternation that he 
saw around him, and, on hearing it, expired in an agony of 
remorse. He was doubly obnoxious as a Sadducee, and for 
his leaning to the Greek party, whence he obtained the epithet! 
of PhilheUen; and it is possible that his character has been 
darkened by party hatred. His three brothers were released 
from prison after his death. 

§ 2. Alexander Jan^^eus (b.c. 105-78), the eldest surviv- 
ing brother of Aristobulus L, secured the succession to the 
throne and priesthood by putting his next brother to death, 
on a charge of aspiring to the diadem. The intestine commo- 
tions both of Syria and Egypt invited him to reduce the 
cities of Palestine which had not yet submitted : Ptolemais, 
Gaza, Dora, and the tower of Straton. On his besieging 
Ptolemais, the people asked aid from Ptolemy Lathyrus, who 
was now King of Cyprus, having been driven from the throne 
of Egypt by his mother, Cleopatra. The large force with 
which Ptolemy came to their relief excited the fears of the 
citizens, and they refused to admit him. He marched into 
Judasa, defeated Alexander's army with great slaughter, and 
ravaged the country with horrible cruelties. Judaea was 
rescued by an army which Cleopatra sent to its aid under 
two Alexandrian Jews, Chelchias and Ananias; 3 and the 
queen, resisting the advice of her counselors to seize the 
country, was content with the capture of Ptolemais. When 
the foreign armies had retired, Alexander took Gadara, east 
of Jordan, but was defeated before Amathus. He next laid 
siege to Gaza, and after a desperate struggle took and utterly 
destroyed the city. 

Meanwhile the Jewish factions were tending rapidly to 
civil war. The Pharisees incited a tumult against Alexander. 
As he was officiating at the Feast of Tabernacles, the people 
pelted him with citrons, and revived the insults upon his 
father's birth. Alexander called in his guards, and 6000 of 
the people were killed. To prevent the recurrence of such 
tumults, the court of the priests was railed off from the 
outer court of the temple, and Alexander enrolled a body- 
guard of Pisidian and Cilician mercenaries. He then resumed 



3 The influence acquired by the 
Jews in Egypt is further proved by 
the circumstance, that Ananias suc- 



ceeded in dissuading Cleopatra from 
seizing Alexander when, he came to 
offer his congratulations at Ptolemais 



64 The Asmoncean Kingdoms. Chap. III. 

his projects of conquest, and subdued Gilead and Moab. 
Three years later he had advanced against Gaulonitis, a 
district in the north of Batanea, when he was defeated, with 
the total loss of his army, by the Arabian king, Orodes. 

The whole Jewish nation now rose in rebellion, and a civil 
war ensued for six years, Alexander's mercenaries at first 
gave him the upper hand ; but, when he asked the people on 
what terms they would submit, they called out to him to cut 
his throat. At length, by the aid of Demetrius Eucaerus, 
one of the rival kings of Syria, Alexander was defeated, and 
his mercenaries cut to pieces, he himself flying to the 
mountains. By an unexplained reaction of public feeling, he 
soon recovered all he had lost ; and, having finished the civil 
war by the capture of Bethsura, he brought his prisoners in 
triumph to Jerusalem. Then was seen the incredible specta- 
cle of a high-priest, the great-grandson of Simon the Macca- 
bee, sitting at a banquet with his wives and concubines, to 
gloat his eyes upon the crucifixion of 800 of his enemies and 
the massacre of their wives and children. The nickname of 
" Thracian " expressed the impotence of public indignation ; 
his opponents fled the country, to the number of 8000 ; and 
the remainder of his reign was undisturbed by open revolt. 

Alexander spent some years in extending his dominions to 
the east of Jordan, and defending them against the Syrians 
and Arabians. He died of an ague at the siege of Ragaba, 
after advising his wife to convene the leaders of the Pharisees, 
and, having placed his dead body at their disposal, to offer to- 
govern by their counsels. This last propitiation of his in- 
veterate enemies was entirely successful. Alexander's re- 
mains were honored with a splendid funeral : his widow suc- 
ceeded to the civil government, and his eldest son, Hyrcanus, 
to the high-priesthood. 4 

§ 3. Alexandra (b.c. 78-69) gave up all real power to 
the Pharisees, who recalled the exiles of their own party, and 
demanded justice on those who had advised the crucifixion 
of the 800 rebels. But a strong opposition was organized 
under Aristobulus, the younger son of Alexander, secretly 
favored by his mother. She sent the accused persons to gar- 
rison some of the frontier towns, and dispatched Aristobulus 
on a secret expedition against Damascus, in which his success 
gained him the favor of the army. 



4 Amid the general silence of the 
classical authors, it is interesting to 
find Strabo speaking of Judsea as 
now "openly governed by tyranny," 



and naming Alexander (though in- 
accurately) as " the first who, instead 
of a priest, assumed the state of a 
king " (xvi. p. 762). 



B.C. 69-63. Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. 65 

§ 4. The result was seen when Alexandra, dying at the 
age of 73, was succeeded nominally by Hyrcanus II., who 
already held the high-priesthood (b.c. 69). Aristobulus fled 
from Jerusalem before his mother breathed her last ; and, 
collecting an army from the garrisons, he defeated the forces 
of the Pharisees at Jericho, and advanced upon Jerusalem. 
Hyrcanus took refuge in the tower of Baris, which he sur- 
rendered after a short siege, yielding the civil and pontifical 
crowns to his brother, who permitted him to retire into pri' 
vate life. 

§ 5. Aristobulus II. (b.c. 69-63) had scarcely achieved 
his victory over the Pharisees, when a new enemy arose in 
the person of Antipater, whose son Herod was destined to 
raise a new throne on the ruins of the Asmonsean dynasty. 
Antipater was by birth an Idumsean noble, the son of Anti- 
pas, who had been governor of Idumsea under Alexander 
JannaBus. Brought up at the royal court, he embraced Juda- 
ism, at least in name, and became the bosom friend of Hyr- 
canus, whose feeble mind he now easily bent to his own am- 
bitious schemes. Persuading him that his life was in danger 
from his brother, Antipater induced Hyrcanus to fly to 
Aretas, king of the ISTabathaaans of Arabia Petrsea, a new pow- 
er which had been growing up around the rock-hewn city of 
Petra. 5 They soon returned with an army of 50,000 men 
under Aretas, who defeated Aristobulus, and besieged him in 
the Temple, his last refuge. The passover came round, and the 
besieged had no lambs to offer. We have seen a Syrian king, 
Antiochus Sidetes, furnishing victims during a former siege ; 
but the allies, though partisans of a high-priest, mocked the 
besieged by promising to supply them, if they would let 
down baskets over the wall with the price of the victims, and 
then, taking the money, they left the baskets to be drawn up 
empty, or placed in them swine instead of the lambs. 

Another striking incident of the siege relieves the monot- 
onous story of these civil discords. Onias, an aged man in 
the camp of Hyrcanus, was required to offer his prayers, 
which had proved effectual during a great drought ; and he 
besought God, since His people were on one side and His 
priests on the other, not to hear the prayers of either for 
each other's hurt. For this impartial patriotism he was 
stoned to death. 

§ 6. Amid such scenes it was time for the appearance of 
that stern arbiter — the Iron state of Nebuchadnezzar's vis- 

6 Respecting the origin and history of this people, see the Diet, of Bible, 
art. Nkbaioth. 



66 The Asmonceayi Kingdoms. Chap. III. 

ion — to which Providence had assigned the work of crushing 
the effete despotisms of Asia, and reducing the civilized world 
under one government, in preparation for the coming of the 
Christ. Rome, though never wanting a pretext for interfer- 
ence with other states, might plead her alliance of a century 
old with the Asnionsean princes as making her intervention 
a duty. Her supremacy in Western Asia had long been 
disputed and imperiled by Mithridates, 6 whose son-in-law, 
Tigranes, king of Armenia, had seized Syria in b.c 83, and 
remained master of the country, till Lucullus defeated Ti- 
granes, and restored the last of the Seleucidae, Antiochus 
XIII., in the first year of Aristobulus, b.c. 69. Three years 
later the conduct of the Mithridatic war was committed to 
the famous Pompey ; and while he defeated Mithridates, and 
plunged in pursuit of him into the regions south of Mount 
Caucasus, his lieutenant Scaurus was sent to take possession 
of Damascus and settle the affairs of Syria. After deposing 
Antiochus XIII. and conquering Syria for Rome (b.c. 65), 
Scaurus received at Damascus the envoys of Hyrcanus and 
Aristobulus, who now occupied the positions in which we 
left them at Jerusalem. Both offered the large bribes of 400 
talents, and Scaurus decided in favor of Aristobulus, who was 
master of the treasures in the Temple (b.c. 64). 

Aretas retired at the Roman's command ; and Aristobulus, 
falling on his rear, gave him a signal defeat. The same year, 
Pompey himself, having reduced Ccelesyria, appeared at Da- 
mascus to receive the homage and presents of the neighbor- 
ing kings. Aristobulus sent him a golden vine, worth 500 
talents ; but Pompey took care to hold the balance in sus- 
pense between the prince who had possession of Jerusalem 
and his feeble rival. He returned to Syria, and came again 
in the following spring to Damascus, to hold a formal court 
for deciding, not only between the two brothers, but between 
them and the Jewish people, who now ventured to complain 
of the hierarchical kingdom as a usurpation. Hyrcanus was 
represented by the wily Antipater, who had taken care to en- 
force his argument from the right of the elder brother by 
bribing more than a thousand of the most distinguished Jews 
to appear before the tribunal as his adherents. In contrast 
with this venerable band, there appeared on the part of Aris- 
tobulus " a troop of insolent youths, splendidly arrayed in 
purple, with flowing hair and rich armor, who carried them- 
selves as if they were the true nobles of the land." (MilmaD.) 

6 The story of the Mithridatic Wars belongs to the history of Rome. 



B.C. 63. Pompey takes Jerusalem. 67 

The orators of his party pleaded that the imbecility of Hyr- 
canus rendered him unfit to govern. The Roman behaved to 
both with that cold and ambiguous reserve, which Cicero has 
drawn as a leading trait of his character, and while studious- 
ly courteous to Aristobulus, he left reason to suspect that his 
decision would be in favor of Hyrcanus, whose incapacity was 
sure to give a pretext for converting protection into conquest. 
From some such fear, or from the consciousness of a bad 
cause, Aristobulus no sooner saw the departure of Pompey on 
an expedition to secure the rock-hewn city of Petra, the great 
trading capital of the Arabs, than he began to prepare for 
resistance. The rapid return of Pompey disconcerted his 
plans; and Aristobulus, unable to disobey the mandate to 
come forth from the stronghold of Alexandrion, was com- 
pelled to sign orders for the surrender of all his fortresses. 
The restless prince still tried the last resource of fleeing to 
Jerusalem and attempting to defend the city. The Roman 
legions advanced along the high-road from the East through 
Jericho, where Pompey's admiration was excited by the palm- 
groves that gave name to the city, and the odoriferous shrubs 
which yielded its far-famed balsams. Once more Aristobulus 
came forward to offer the surrender of Jerusalem; and he 
was detained while Pompey sent forward his legate, Gabin- 
ius, to take possession of the city. On its unexpected resist- 
ance, Pompey threw Aristobulus into chains, and advanced 
with his whole army. He was admitted by the party of Hyr- 
canus, who had now gained the upper hand. The friends of 
Aristobulus shut themselves up in the Temple, which held 
out for three months, and was at last taken by assault, with 
the slaughter of 12,000 Jews. The priests, who were en- 
gaged about the daily sacrifices, calmly continued their serv- 
ice, and many of them were slain at the altar. The Temple 
was profaned by the entrance of the Roman general, the im- 
ages on whose standards had long ago been indicated by Dan- 
iel's prophecy of " the abomination that maketh desolate " 
(b.c. 63) : but, as on former occasions, a long respite, filled 
with golden opportunities, followed the first step of the 
threatened judgment, before the desolation was completed. 
Pompey entered the Holy of Holies, where he was amazed 
to find no statue or other symbol of the Deity. He left the 
sacred vessels and the vast treasures untouched, 7 and ordered 

7 It excites natural surprise to find millions sterling. The explanation 

the Temple, at this stage of Jewish is to be found in the offerings sent by 

history, still in possession of treasures the pious Jews from every province 

which have been computed at two of the Roman empire, of which we 



68 The Asmoncean Kingdoms. Chap. III. 

the Temple to be purified. He conferred the high-priesthood 
and principality upon Hyrcanus, limiting his territory to Ju- 
daea Proper, and forbidding him to assume the crown. He 
imposed a tribute, and demolished the walls of Jerusalem. 
Aristobulus was carried off, with his two sons and two daugh- 
ters, to grace the victor's triumph ; but Alexander, the elder 
son, escaped on the way; and Antigonus, the younger, as 
well as Aristobulus himself, made their escape from Rome at 
a later period. Meanwhile, the Jews regarded Pompey' s sac- 
rilege as the fatal turning-point of his history ; and when the 
civil war broke out, they warmly embraced the party of Caesar^^ 

§ 7. Hyrcanus II. (b.c. 63-40) was restored to a power 
which was merely nominal; for Judaea was really governed 
by Antipater in complete subservience to the policy of Rome. 
In fact, Judaea seems to have been annexed by Pompey to 
the newly-formed province of Syria, though under a separate 
administration, both judicial and financial. The progress of 
Alexander, who soon appeared at the head of 10,000 foot 
and 1500 horse, left Hyrcanus no choice but Roman pro- 
tection. Gabinius, the proconsul of Syria, besieged Alexan- 
der in the fortress of Alexandrion ; but the interest of Alex- 
ander's mother with the Romans obtained her son an amnes- 
ty, on condition of his surrendering that and his other for- 
tresses. The celebrated Mark Antony acted in this cam- 
paign as the lieutenant of Gabinius. The intervention of Ga- 
binius led to a new settlement of the civil government. He 
deprived the high-priest of the supreme power, which he di- 
vided among five " Great Sanhedrims," seated at Jerusalem, 
Jericho, Gadara, Amanthus, and Sepphoris, and modeled on 
the Great Sanhedrim of 71 members, which had administered 
justice at Jerusalem from the time of the Maccabees. 8 Thus 
the desire of the Jews for emancipation from the temporal 
power of the high-priest was gratified at the expense of the 
loss of a central seat of government. This state of things 
lasted till the restoration of Hyrcanus to the principality by 
Julius Caesar, b.c. 44. 



have an incidental notice in Cicero's 
praise of Flaccus for forbidding the 
export of such offerings from the prov- 
ince of Asia. "This very remark- 
able passage," says Dr. Mil man, 
"shows, curiously enough, the Jews 
as already exporters of gold, thougli 



assemblies in the cities of Asia Mi- 
nor; the astonishment that Pompey 
had the moderation, for which Cicero 
is perplexed to account, not to plun- 
der the Temple, and was unwilling 
to expose himself to the reproaches 
of a people so likely to be heard as 



but religious offerings, yet affecting the Jews. 

the markets of the world ; their great y See Notes and Illustrations (A), 

numbers, and clamor in the public I The Sanhedrim. 



B.C. 48. Supremacy of Antipater. 69 

The new settlement was but just made, when Aristobulus, 
having escarped from Rome with his youngest son Antig- 
onus, gathered a new army, and again occupied Alexandri- 
on, but they were speedily defeated by Gabinius, and sent 
back to Rome, where Aristobulus remained a prisoner, but Am 
tigonus was again released through his mother's intercession. 
When Gabinius marched with Mark Antony into Egypt, Al- 
exander seized the opportunity for another revolt, and shut 
up the small Roman force, who had been left behind, in Mount 
Gerizim (b.c. 56). At the head of 80,000 men he met Gabini- 
us after his return from Egypt, but was utterly defeated near 
Mount Tabor, and only saved his life by flight. 

In b.c. 55 Ceasstjs received Syria as his share in the parti- 
tion of provinces by the first triumvirs. In the following 
year he reached Jerusalem on his disastrous expedition against 
the Parthians, who had complete power beyond the Euphrates, 
and had begun to threaten Syria. The high-priest only whet- 
ted his insatiable avarice by the surrender of a secret treasure ; 
and Crassus pillaged the temple of all the wealth which was 
collected by the annual offerings of the faithful who were dis- 
persed over the world, and which Pompey had spared. His 
plunder is said to have reached the enormous amount of 10,000 
talents, or more than two millions sterling ; and his fatal over- 
throw by the Parthians was viewed by the Jews as the punish- 
ment of one more of their oppressors, for Gabinius had already 
been driven into exile. 

§ 8. On the outbreak of the Civil War, Caesar freed Aristo- 
bulus and sent him to Judaea, but he was murdered on the 
journey by the partisans of Pompey, and his son Alexander 
was executed by Scipio at Antioch. Antigonus alone was 
left ; and his claims were superseded by the timely aid which 
Antipater gave Caesar in his Egyptian campaign (b.c. 48). 
His services were rewarded by the restoration of his puppet 
Hyrcanus to the sovereignty, with the title of Ethnarch, and 
by the remission of tribute in the Sabbatic year. Antipater 
was made the Procurator of all Judaea, and a Roman citizen ; 
and the aggrandizement of his family occupies the few remain- 
ing years of the Asmonaean dynasty. 

Aiitipater had four sons : — Phasael, Herod, Joseph, and 
Pheroras, and a daughter named Salome. 9 He made Phasael 
governor of Jerusalem, and Herod, who was only fifteen years 
old, governor of Galilee. Herod 10 soon distinguished him- 

See the Genealogical Table in the j Greek name, like nearly all those of 

Notes and Illustrations (B). ! the leaders at this period. His moth- 

10 Properly Herodes ('Hpwtfj/c)* a er was Cypres, an Arabian princess 



70 



The Asmoncean Kingdoms. 



Chap. IIL 



self alike by energy in his government and defiance of all Jew- 
ish laws and powers. He put down the banditti by a severi- 
ty in which we see the germs of his later cruelties. His exe- 
cution of their leader roused the jealousy of the Sanhedrim, 
who cited him to answer before them for his assumption of 
the power of life and death. Confident in the popularity 
his success had earned, and bearing a menacing letter from 
Sextus Caesar, the governor of Syria, Herod appeared before 
the Sanhedrim in arms and royal purple. The only man who 
dared to rebuke his presumption and to warn tho court against 
submission, Sameas, was one of the only two whose lives Her- 
od spared when the warning was fulfilled. Hyrcanus adjourn- 
ed the trial, and permitted Herod to escape to Damascus to 
Sextus Caesar, who made him governor of Coelesyria. It re- 
quired all the influence of Antipater to dissuade his son from 
marching in arms upon Jerusalem. 

§ 9. The death of Julius Caesar (b.c. 44) was a great blow, 
not only to the party of Hyrcanus and the family of Antipater, 
but to the whole Jewish nation, to whom he had granted pro- 
tection in their religion. 11 Cassius assumed the government 
of Syria with the intolerant rapacity of a proconsul of the old 
school. Judaea was assessed at 700 talents, half to be raised 
by Antipater and his sons, and half by Malichus, a courtier of 
Hyrcanus. Malichus being unable to raise his portion, would 
have fallen a victim to the resentment of Cassius, 12 had not 
Antipater made good the deficiency from the treasures of Hyr- 
canus. Malichus acquitted the obligation by poisoning Antip- 
ater ; but Herod not long afterward procured the murder of 
Malichus in the presence of Hyrcanus, who was forced to ap- 
prove the deed as performed by the authority of Cassius, 
whose favor Herod had completely won. 

The departure of Cassius from Syria seemed to give the 
stricter Jews the opportunity of throwing off the domination 
of the Herodians, for so we may call the party since the death 
of Antipater. But Phasael put them down at Jerusalem, and 
Antigonus himself was repulsed from Galilee by Herod. 
Their hopes revived with the battle of Philippi (b.c. 42) ; and 
Hyrcanus placed himself at their head. He was won back, 



11 Josephus (Ant. xiv. 10) quotes 
edicts of Caesar and the Senate, grant- 
ing to Hyrcanus the city of Joppa, 
and to the people the enjoyment of 
the Sabbath and the Sabbatic year ; 
an interesting proof, among others, 
of the adherence of the later Jews, 



amid all their civil dissensions, to 
the rites which had been neglected 
before the Captivity. 

12 This great "liberator" of his 
country sold the people of several de- 
faulting villages into slavery. 



B.C. 40-37. Antigonus the last Asmoncean. 71 

however, by Herod, who offered to marry his granddaughter 
Mariamne, 13 and so allied himself to the Asnionsean family. 
Herod also defeated Antigonus, though supported by the Ko< 
man governor of Damascus ; and his presents and flattery 
secured the favor of Mark Antony, to whom the second trL 
umvirate had given the dominion of the East. Antony com- 
mitted the two governments of Palestine to Herod and his 
brother Phasael, under the title of tetrarchs, and issued various 
decrees in favor of Hyrcanus and the Jewish nation (b.c. 41). 

A last ray of hope from the East gilded the fall of the As- 
monaeans. While Antony was spending his time in dalliance 
with Cleopatra, Syria revolted, and called in the aid of the 
Parthians under Pacorus, the king's son (b.c. 40). Antigo- 
nus, the surviving son of Aristobulus, offered the Parthian 
general 1000 talents and 500 women of the noblest families, if 
he would restore him to the throne. Supported by a Parthian 
force, Antigonus marched upon Jerusalem, where the two fac- 
tions came to open war, and Hyrcanus was only upheld by 
Herod's energy and severity. At length Hyrcanus and Phas- 
ael were induced, against the advice of Herod, to submit their 
cause in person to Barzaphernes, the Parthian commander in 
Syria. Herod fled to Massada, a strong fortress on the west 
side of the Dead Sea, where he placed his mother, his sister, 
and his betrothed bride, Mariamne, under the care of his 
brother Joseph and an Idumsean force, while he betook him- 
self to Rome. Foiled in the main object of securing Herod's 
person, the Parthian general threw Hyrcanus and Phasael into 
chains. The latter committed suicide in prison. The former 
was mutilated of his ears, in order to disqualify him from 
continuing high-priest. He lived for some years longer, and 
was at last put to death by Herod on a charge of treason. 

§10. Antigonus, the last ruler of the Asmonsean house, 
held a nominal sovereignty for three years (b.c. 40-37). The 
Parthians ravaged the country, and Herod soon returned in a 
new character. He had artfully advocated with the triumvirs 
the claims of young Aristobulus, the brother of Mariamne, 
who was the grandson both of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus. 14 



13 She was the daughter of Alex- 
ander, the son of Aristobulus, and of 
Alexandra, the daughter of Hyrca- 
nus, and so the last representative 
(except Antigonus and her brother 
Aristobulus) of both the surviving 
branches of the Asmoncean house. 
By the marriage, which took place 



in b.c. 37, the same year in which 
Antigonus was put to death, Herod 
adopted her claims as his own. 

14 His father was Alexander, the 
elder son of Aristobulus, and his 
mother was Alexandra, the daughter 
of Hyrcanus. 



72 The Asmoncean Kingdoms. Chap. ILL 

But his real wishes were doubtless well known to his former 
friend, Antony ; with his usual address he secured the favor 
of Octavian ; and the result was a decree of the Senate appoint- 
ing him king of Judaea. 

All this was done at Rome in the short space of a week, 
and Herod landed at Ptolemais after an absence of only three 
months. Antigonus was now left to himself, his Parthian allies 
having retired on the advance of Ventidius, the legate of Anto- 
ny. He was besieging Massada, which Herod speedily relieved 
with the aid of a Roman force under Silo. The treachery of 
this general, whose object was to make all the gain he could 
of both parties, compelled Herod, after considerable successes, 
to retire from before Jerusalem. Fixing his head-quarters in 
Samaria, he employed his energies in clearing Galilee of rob- 
bers. The next year's campaign was indecisive; but, after 
the expulsion of the Parthians from Syria, Antony placed a 
sufficient force at Herod's disposal. Having gained a great 
battle over Pappus, the general of Antigonus, Herod formed 
the siege of Jerusalem in the spring of b.c. 37 ; while he sought 
to recommend himself to the Asmonaean party by completing 
his marriage with Mariamne. The siege lasted six months ; 
the sufferings of the besieged being increased by the scarcity 
of a Sabbatic year. The city was at length taken on a Sab- 
bath; 15 and such was the fury of the Roman soldiery under 
Sosius, that Herod had to entreat that he might not be left 
king of a depopulated capital. Antigonus was sent in chains 
to Antony, who put him to death at Herod's instigation. The 
last king of the Maccabsean line was the first sovereign who 
ended his life beneath the rods and axe of the Roman lictor ; 
and the Jewish historian so far sympathizes with Rome, as to 
forget the shame of his nation in contempt for the weakness 
of its last native ruler. Thus ended the Asmonoean dynasty 
(b.c. 37), in the 130th year from the first victories of Judas 
Maccabeus, and the 70th from the assumption of the royal 
title by Aristobulus I. We shall soon see how the sole re- 
maining scion of the long line of heroes, priests, and princes, 
the young Aristobulus, was cut off by Herod. 

w The " Day of Saturn," Dion Cass, xlviii. 2% 



Chap. Ill, 



Notes and Illustrations. 



73 



NOTES AND 1LLUSTKATIONS. 



(A.) THE SANHEDRIM. 

The word Sanhedrim, properly 
Sanhedrin, is formed from avvedpiov : 
the attempts of the Rabbins to find 
a Hebrew etymology for it are idle. 

The Great Sanhedrim, as it is call- 
ed in the Talmud, was the supreme 
council of the Jewish people in the 
time of Christ and earlier. In the 
Mishna it is also styled house of judg- 
ment. 

. The origin of this assembly is 
traced in the Mishna to the seventy 
elders whom Moses was directed to 
associate with him in the government 
of the Israelites (Num. xi. 16, 17). 
This body continued to exist, ac- 
cording to the Rabbinical accounts, 
down to the close of the Jewish 
commonwealth. But it is now gen- 
erally admitted that the tribunal es- 
tablished by Moses was probably 
temporary, and did not continue to 
exist after the Israelites had entered 
Palestine. 

In the lack of definite historical 
information as to the establishment 
of the Sanhedrim, it can only be said 
in general that the Greek etymology 
of the name seems to point to a pe- 
riod subsequent to the Macedonian 
supremacy in Palestine. The fact 
(that Hei-od, when procurator of Gal- 
ilee, was summoned before the San- 
hedrim (n. c. 47), on the ground 
that in putting men to death he had 
usurped the authority of the body 
(Joseph. Ant . xiv. 9, § 4), shows that 
it then possessed much power and 
was not of very recent origin. If 
D 



the yepovaia tojv 'lovdaiiov, in 2 Mace, 
i. 10, iv. 44, xi. 27, designates the 
Sanhedrim — as it probably does — this 
is the earliest historical trace of its 
existence. 

In the silence of Philo, Josephus, 
and the Mishna respecting the consti- 
tution of the Sanhedrim, we are 
: obliged to depend upon the few in- 
I cidental notices in the New Testa- 
| ment. From these we gather that 
j it consisted of dpxieptlg, chief 'priests, 
j or the heads of the twenty four class- 
es into which the priests were di- 
j vided (including, probably, those who 
had been high-priests), irpea^vrepoi, 
elders, men of age and experience, and 
ypajXfiartiQ, scribes, lawyers, or those 
learned in the Jewish law (Matt. 
| xx. 57, 59 ; Mark xv. 1 ; Luke xxii. 
j 66 ; Acts v. 21). 

The number of members is usual- 
i ly given as 71, though other author ^ 
! ities make them 70, and others 72. 
j The president of this body was 
i styled Nasi, and was chosen on ac- 
count of his eminence in worth and 
S wisdom. Often, if not generally, 
i this pre-eminence was accorded to 
j the high-priest. That the high-priest 
i presided at the condemnation of Je- 
; sus (Matt. xxvi. 62) is plain from the 
; narrative. The vice-president, call- 
' ed in the Talmud father of the house 
j of judgment, sat at the right hand of 
the president. While in session the 
j Sanhedrim sat in the form of a half- 
i circle. In Matt. xxvi. 58, Mark xiv. 
j 54, al, the lictors or attendants of 
the Sanhedrim are referred to under 
' the name of viriyperat. 



74 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. Ill 



The place in which the sessions of 
the Sanhedrim were ordinarily held 
was, according to the Talmud, a hall 
called Gazzith, supposed to have 
been situated in the south-east corner 
of one of the courts near the Temple 
building. In special exigencies, how- 
ever, it seems to have met in the res- 
idence of the high-priest (Matt. xxvi. 
3). Forty years before the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, and consequently 
while the Saviour was teaching in 
Palestine; the sessions of the Sanhe- 
drim were removed from the hall 
Gazzith to a somewhat greater dis- 
tance from the temple building, al- 
though still on Mount Moriah. Aft- 
er several other changes, its seat was 
finally established at Tiberias. 

As a judicial body the Sanhedrim 
constituted a supreme court, to which 
belonged in the first instance the tri- 
al of a tribe fallen into idolatry, 
false prophets, and the high-priest, 
as well as the other priests. As an 
administrative council, it determined 
other important matters. Jesus was 
arraigned before this body as a false 
prophet (John xi. 47), and Peter, 
John, Stephen, and Paul as teachers 



of error and deceivers of the people. 
From Acts ix. 2, it appears that the 
Sanhedrim exercised a degree of au- 
thority beyond the limits of Pales- 
tine. According to the Jerusalem 
Gemara, the power of inflicting capi- 
tal punishment was taken away from 
this tribunal forty years before the 
destruction of Jerusalem. With this 
agrees the answer of the Jews to Pi- 
late (John xix. 31), " It is not law- 
ful for us to put any man to death." 
Beyond the arrest, trial, and condem- 
nation of one convicted of violating 
the ecclesiastical law, the jurisdiction 
of the Sanhedrim at the time could 
not be extended ; the confirmation 
and execution of the sentence in 
capital cases belonged to the Roman 
procurator. The stoning of Stephen 
(Acts vii. 56 sqq.) is only an appar- 
ent exception, for it was either a tu- 
multuous procedure, or, if done by 
order of the Sanhedrim, was an ille- 
gal assumption of power, as Jose- 
phus {Ant. xx. 9, 1) expressly de- 
clares the execution of the Apostle 
James during the absence of the pro 
curator to have baen. 



Chap. in. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



75 



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Temple of Herod restored. See p. 85. 



CHAPTER IV. 

IIEEOD THE GREAT. B.C. 37-4. 

§ I. Government and policy of the Herodian family — Herod the Grea? 
— Massacre of the Sanhedrim — The high-priesthood — Aristobulus ap- 
pointed and murdered — Herod and Cleopatra — The Battle of Actiuni 
— Herod and Octavian. § 2. Extent and divisions of Herod's king- 
dom. § 3. Domestic tragedies — Deaths of Mariamne and Alexandra. 
§ 4. Government of Herod— His hellenizing practices — Building of the 
Antonia, of Sebaste, and of Caesarea— Herod courts Augustus and 
Agrippa — His ^munificence. § 5. Rebuilding of the Temple. § 6. 
Family of Herod — Judicial murder of Aristobulus and Alexander — 
Conspiracy and condemnation of Antipater. § 7. Herod's last illness 
— Alarm at the birth of Christ — The Massacre at Bethlehem — Execu- 
tion of Antipater— Death of Herod. § 8. Character of Herod— His 
place in Sacred History — The subsequent history of the Jews in two 
streams. 

§ 1. The history of the Herodian family presents one side 
of the last development of the Jewish nation. The evils 



B.C. 37. Character of Herod. 77 

already seen in the hierarchy which grew up after the 
Return, found an unexpected embodiment in the tyranny of 
a foreign usurper. Religion was adopted as a policy; and 
the hellenizing designs of Antiochus Epiphanes were carried 
out, at least in their spirit, by men who professed to observe 
the Law. Side by side with the spiritual " kingdom of God," 
proclaimed by John the Baptist, and founded by the Lord, a 
kingdom of the world was established, which in its external 
splendor recalled the traditional magnificence of Solomon. 
The simultaneous realization of the two principles, national 
and spiritual, which had long variously influenced the Jews 
in the establishment of a dynasty and a church, is a fact preg- 
nant with instruction. In the fullness of time a descendant of 
Esau established a false counterpart of the promised glories of 
Messiah. 

Various accounts are given of the ancestry of the Herods ; 
but, neglecting the exaggerated statements of friends and ene- 
mies, 1 it seems certain that they were of Idumaaan descent^ a 
fact which is indicated by the forms of some of the names 
which were retained in the family. But though aliens by 
race, the Herods were Jews in faith. The Idumaeans had 
been conquered and brought over to Judaism by John 
Hyrcanus (b.c. 130) ; and from the time of their conversion 
they remained constant to their new religion, looking upon 
Jerusalem as their mother city, and claiming for themselves 
the name of Jews. 2 

The general policy of the whole Herodian family, though 
modified by the personal characteristics of the successive 
rulers, was the same. It centred in the endeavor to found a 
great and independent kingdom, in which the power of 
Judaism should subserve the consolidation of a state. The 
protection of Rome was in the first instance a necessity ; but 
the designs of Herod I. and Agrippa I. point to an independ- 

1 The Jewish partisans of Herod j the son of one Herod, a slave attached 
(Nicolas Damascenus, ap. Joseph, j to the service of a temple of Apollo at 
Ant. xiv. 1, 3) sought to raise him to j Ascalon, who was taken prisoner by 
the dignity of a descent from one of j Idumsean robbers, and kept by them, 
the noble families which returned j as his father could not pay his ransom, 
from Babylon ; and, on the other j The locality (cf. Philo, Leg. ad Caiwn, 
hand, early Christian writers repre- 1 § 30) no less than the office was calcu- 
sented his origin as utterly mean and j lated to fix a heavy reproach upon 
servile. Africanus has preserved a j the name (cf. Eouth, ad /oc). This 
tradition (Routh, Rell. Sacr. ii. p. j story is repeated with great inaccu* 
235), on the authority of "the natu- I racy by Epiphanius {liar. xx.). 
ral kinsmen of the Saviour," which j 2 Joseph. Ant. xx. 1, % 7j B. X L 
makes Antipater the father of Herod, 10, §4, iv. 4, § 4. 



78 Herod the Great. Chap. IV. 

ent Eastern Empire as their end, and not to a mere subject 
monarchy. Such a consummation of the Jewish hopes seems 
to have found some measure of acceptance at first, and heoce 
arose the party of the Herodians; 3 and by a natural reaction 
the temporal dominion of the Herods opened the way to the 
destruction of the Jewish nationality. The religion which 
was degraded into the instrument of unscrupulous ambition 
lost its power to quicken a united people. The high-priests 
were appointed and deposed by Herod I. and his successors 
with such a reckless disregard for the character of their office, 
that the office itself was deprived of its sacred dignity. 4 The 
nation was divided, and amid the conflicts of sects a univers- 
al faith arose, which more than fulfilled the nobler hopes that 
found no satisfaction in the treacherous grandeur of a court. 
Herod the Great 5 (b.c. 37-4) was now established on 
the throne of Judaea, and founded a dynasty of princes who 
ruled in different parts of Palestine under various titles ; but 
among whom he himself was the last, as he was the first, inde- 
pendent sovereign of the whole country. For he may be 
termed independent in reference to the exercise of his power, 
though its origin and tenure rested on the will of his Roman 
masters. By birth an Idumaaan, by policy and predilection 
an adherent and imitator of Rome, he seemed to many of his 
subjects little better than a heathen conqueror; and his cruel- 
ties to the Asmonse-an house, which was still held in reverence, 
roused a deep sense of indignation. He signalized his eleva- 
tion to the throne by offerings to the Capitoline Jupiter, and 
surrounded his person with foreign mercenaries, some of 
whom had been formerly in the service of Cleopatra. His 
coins, and those of his successors, bore only Greek legends, 
and he introduced heathen games within the walls of Jerusa- 
lem. He resolved at once to sjiow the malcontents that they 
had a master. Massacre and confiscation were dealt out to 
the Asmona3an party. Forty-five of the chief adherents of 
Antigonus were put to death, with the whole Sanhedrim, 
except the rabbis Sameas and Pollio, 6 who had counseled the 
surrender of Jerusalem during the siege. Their spoils 
enabled Herod to satisfy the rapacity of his patron Antony. 
The whole period of Herod's reign was, in many respects, a 



3 Notes and Illustrations (A). 

4 See Acts xxiii. 2 fol. 

6 Ewald observes that Herod is not 
called the Great in any contemporary 
document. There are inscriptions 



which style him "the Great King," i elytesc 



but this is a title of royalty, not the 
appellation of the man. 

6 The Jewish names of these twq 
great rabbis were Shemaiah and Ab- 
taleon. They were the sons of pros 



B.C. 37. Character of Herod. 79 

repetition of that of the Maccabees and Antiochus Epiphanes. 
True, Herod was more politic and more prudent, and also 
probably had more sympathy with the Jewish character, than 
Antiochus. But the spirit of stern resistance to innovation 
and of devotion to the law of Jehovah burned no less fiercely 
in the breasts of the people than it had done before ; and it is 
curious to remark how every attempt on Herod's part to 
introduce foreign customs was met by outbreaks, and how 
futile were all the benefits which he conferred both on the 
temporal and ecclesiastical welfare of the people when these 
obnoxious intrusions were in question. Whatever his ulti- 
mate designs might be, he was not yet prepared to annul the 
great institutions of religion ; nor, as a stranger of the hated 
race of Esau, did he venture to assume the robes of Aaron. 
He brought an obscure priest from Babylon, named Ananel, 
to fill the office of high-priest, which had been vacant since 
the mutilation of Hyrcanus. But this insult to the surviving 
members of the Asrnonsean house found an able and unscrupu- 
lous opponent. This was Alexandra, the daughter of Hyr- 
canus, widow of Alexander the elder son of Aristobulus, and 
mother of Herod's wife Mariamne, and of young Aristobulus, 
whose claims we have seen Herod himself affecting to sup- 
port at Rome. Her adroit appeals to Cleopatra, and her 
unscrupulous intrigues to win over Antony, alarmed Herod, 
who, always ready to trim his policy by necessity, conferred 
the high-priesthood on Aristobulus. But the people's ap» 
plause, when they saw the graceful youth of sixteen, the last 
scion of the Maccabees, perform his office with a dignity be- 
coming his descent, sealed the doom which had doubtless al- 
ready been resolved on. At a feast given by Alexandra to 
Herod near Jericho, Aristobulus was drowned while bathing 
in a tank, as if accidentally, by the rough play of his comrades, 
who were instigated by Herod.* Ananel was then reappointed 
to the priesthood. 

It was in vain that the king honored his victim with a 
splendid funeral. The people were not deceived by his pre- 
tended grief ; and Alexandra again appealed to Cleopatra. 
Herod was summoned to Antony at Laodicea. He resolved 
to face the danger; but, the husband's jealousy being perhaps 
mixed with the desire for a sweet revenge on Alexandra in the 
death of her remaining child, he left orders with his brother 
Joseph to dispatch Mariamne on the first news of his own 
death. Herod's gifts and personal influence with Antony 
triumphed even over the enmity of Cleopatra ; but the visit 
had fatal consequences. Herod returned, with Coelesyria 



80 Herod the Great. Chap. IV. 

added to his dominions, to have his mind poisoned against 
his wife by the jealousy of his sister Salome. His fondness 
for Mariamne, however, prevailed over suspicion, till her own 
remonstrance with him for the cruel sentence, which Joseph 
had betrayed to her, seemed to prove the familiarity alleged by 
Salome. But her charms had not yet lost their power, and his 
rage was satiated by the execution of Joseph and the impris- 
onment of Alexandra. A new danger followed, in the shape 
of a visit of Cleopatra to Jerusalem, on her return with Antony 
from his Parthian expedition; but Herod, after saving his 
kingdom from her cupidity, had the rarer skill to preserve 
himself from her fascinations. He is even said to have con- 
templated her murder, as the best service he could do at once 
to Antony and himself, and to have afterward taken credit 
with Augustus for such a proof of friendship to his patron. 

In the spring of 31, the year of the battle of Actium, Judaea 
was visited by an earthquake, the effects of which appear to 
have been indeed tremendous: 10,000, 7 or, according to 
another account, 8 20,000 persons were killed by the fall of 
buildings, and an immense quantity of cattle. The panic at 
Jerusalem was very severe ; but it was calmed by the argu- 
ments of Herod, then departing to a campaign on the east 
of Jordan for the interests of Cleopatra, against Malchus, 
king of Arabia. This campaign, in which Herod won a dear- 
bought victory, kept him, whether by good fortune or design, 
from following Antony to Actium. He went to meet the 
conqueror at Rhodes, having first put an end to all rivalry 
from the Asinonaean house by the execution of the aged Hyr- 
canus on a charge of treason (b.c. 30). He intrusted the 
government to his brother Pheroras, and provided for the 
safety of his family in the fortress of Massada. Mariamne 
and her mother were placed in Alexandrion, under the care 
of his steward Joseph and an'Ituraean named Soemus, with 
the same secret instructions as before. Herod had not mis- 
calculated his personal influence over the young Octavian. 
Instead of apologizing for his faithful adherence to Antony, 
he urged it as a proof of the constancy which the conqueror 
might expect. He returned to Judaea, invested anew with the 
diadem, and honored with marks of personal favor. He 
shortly after met Octavian on his way to Egypt at Ptolemais, 
and secured his favor by a magnificent entertainment, by 
providing for all the wants of the Roman army, and by a 
present of 800 talents. 

7 Ant. xv. 5, § 2. 8 B. J. i. 19, § 3. 



B.C. 30. Extent of Heroes. Kingdom. SI 

§ 2. When the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra was con- 
summated, and Egypt reduced to a Roman province, Octavi* 
an restored to Herod those parts of Palestine which Antony 
had presented to Cleopatra, as well as the fortresses and 
maritime towns, which had long been the objects of dispute, 
as Gadara, Samaria, Joppa, Gaza, and the Tower of Straton, 
soon to become the princely city of Csesarea. Herod was 
now master of a kingdom which included all the land origi- 
nally divided among the twelve tribes, together with Idumsea. 
Exclusive of the latter country, the whole was divided into 
four districts, a clear conception of which is needful for under- 
standing the topography of our Lord's ministry : — i. Judaea ; 
extending from the confines of Egypt and the southern desert 
to a line drawn from Joppa, not* far different from the 3 2d 
parallel of latitude, ii. Samaria; whose N". boundary ran 
along the hills S. of the plain of Esdraelon, meeting the sea S. 
of Dora. iii. Galilee, Lower and Upper ; extending north- 
ward as far as the parallel of Mount Hermon ; but shut out 
from the sea by the narrow strip of Phoenice, which reached 
S. of Carmel and even of Dora. iv. Per^ea, 9 the name of 
the whole region E. of Jordan and the Dead Sea as far S. as 
the Anion, which was again subdivided into — (1) JPercea, in 
the narrower sense, between the Arnon and the Jabbok : (2) 
Galaaditis, the old land of Gilead, partly overlapping the 
former: (3) JBatancea, (4) Gmdonitis, and (5)Itura?a or An- 
ranitis, embracing together the ancient country of Bashan: 
(6) Trachonitis, in the wild rocky desert of the Hauran. (1) 
Abilene, among the eastern foot-hills of the Antilibanus, lay 
beyond the proper limits of the country. Lastly, (8) Decap- 
olis, a name at first given to Ten Cities in the north, which 
were rebuilt and endowed with certain privileges at the time 
of the first Roman occupation (b.c. 65), became the designa- 
tion of a large district on both sides the lake of Galilee. 

§ 3. This fair kingdom had been won (we have seen in 
what way) by a man of ability, magnificence, and taste ; but 
utterly regardless of his people's most cherished feelings, and 
insensible to the high destiny of the "Holy Nation," the 
"peculiar possession of Jehovah." This idea has been for 
some time so steadily fading, that the sacred name has almost 
disappeared from our pages; but it was reserved for the 
Idumaean usurper at once to reunite the nation, and to heathen- 

9 'H -Kipaia (sc. xwpa), the oppo- opposite side of a river, strait, etc., 



site country, is a general term in 
Greek geography for any land on the 
D 2 



as we say " over the water." 



82 Herod the Great. Chap. IV. 

ize its government, and so to prove the need, while smoothing 
the way, for the advent of the Christ. Meanwhile Herod's 
prosperity was poisoned by unparalleled domestic tragedies. 
Alexandra and Mariamne had again won from Soemus the 
secret of Herod's fatal orders, and this time the wife's indig- 
nation and the renewed accusations of Salome were too strong 
for Herod's fondness. Convinced at length that guilty love 
was the price of his betrayed secret, Herod doomed Mari- 
amne to death ; and her last moments were insulted by the 
reproaches with which her mother purchased a brief respite 
for herself. The proud and beautiful queen died with the 
courage of innocence, leaving Herod the victim of a remorse 
which never ceased. In its first transports he retired into 
solitude, and fell dangerously ill. Alexandra now thought the 
time was come to consummate her intrigues and revenge ; but 
her plot for seizing the Tower of Baris was betrayed to 
Herod, and she was led to the fate which her daughter had so 
lately suffered. Her death removed Herod's last fears from 
the Asmonaeans ; but his illness seems to have given the last 
permanent tinge of morose cruelty to his stern temper. 
Among many distinguished victims to the charge of an As- 
monaean conspiracy was Costabaras, an Idumaean, the former 
husband of Salome, who had divorced him in direct violation 
of the law. 

§ 4. Herod's public administration was directed to the in- 
crease of his own royal state, and the gratification of his im- 
perial master. But he probably acted also from the more 
subtle policy of " counterbalancing by a strong Grecian party 
the turbulent and exclusive spirit of the Jews." The Jews, 
who had so nobly resisted the attempt to persecute them into 
Hellenism, were now invited to adopt both Greek and Roman 
customs. The holy hill, to which David had carried up the 
ark of God, looked down upon a theatre and amphitheatre, in 
which Herod held games in honor of Augustus, with musical 
and dramatic contests, horse and chariot races, and the bloody 
fights of gladiators and wild beasts, while Jewish athletes 
took part in gymnastic contests. The sullen submission of the 
people was only overtaxed by the sight of the trophies hung 
round the theatre ; but when Herod had them opened to show 
that they contained no idols, indignation gave way to ridicule. 
A few, however, viewed these proceedings with far sterner 
feelings. Ten zealots bound themselves by a vow to kill 
Herod in the theatre ; but they -were discovered and put to 
death, enduring the most cruel torments with the constancy 
of the Maccabaean martyrs. 



B.C. 29. Government of Herod. 83 

At this time Herod occupied the old palace of the Asmo- 
naeans, which crowned the eastern face of the upper city, and 
stood adjoining the Xystus at the end of the bridge which 
formed the communication between the south part of the 
Temple and the upper city. 10 This palace was not yet so 
magnificent as he afterward made it, but it was already most 
richly furnished. 11 Herod had now also completed the im- 
provements of the Baris — the fortress built by John Hyrcanus 
on the foundations of Simon Maccabaeus — which he had 
enlarged and strengthened at great expense, and named Anto- 
nia — after his friend Mark Antony. 12 This celebrated for- 
tress formed an intimate part of the Teaiple, as reconstructed 
by Herod. It stood at the west end of the north wall of the 
Temple, and was inaccessible on all sides but that. 13 He pro- 
vided a refuge, in case of need, from the hostility of Jerusa- 
lem, in the two fortresses of Gaba in Galilee and Heshbon in 
Peraea. A similar feeling was displayed in his restoration of 
Samaria, which he called Sebaste, 14 in honor of Augustus, and 
peopled with his veteran soldiers mingled with descendants 
of the old Samaritans. But his greatest undertaking in this 
sort was the erection of a new maritime city on the site of the 
Tower of Straton. An exposed anchorage was converted into 
a safe harbor by a mole 200 feet wide, constructed of im- 
mense stones and fortified with towers. The city, magnifi- 
cently built in the Grseco-Roman style of architecture, rose in 
the form of an amphitheatre from the quays that lined the 
harbor. Among its public buildings were a theatre and 
amphitheatre ; and in its centre stood a temple dedicated to 
Augustus, with two colossal statues, one of Rome, and the 
other of the Emperor, in whose honor the city was called 
C^esarea. That all might be in keeping, it was peopled chief- 
ly by Greeks. Its erection occupied twelve years. Designed 
probably for Herod's new capital, whenever he might feel it 
safe to throw off the last shred of Judaism, it became before 
long the seat of Roman government. Meanwhile its mari- 
time position brought Judaea into closer contact than ever 
with the Roman world. Its ruins, which still bear the 



10 Joseph. Ant. xv. 8, § 5 ; corap„ l had been at least seven or eight years 
xx. 8, § 11, and B. J. ii. 16, § 3. I in progress. 

11 Joseph. Ant. xv. 9, § 2. 13 See Notes and Illustrations (B). 

12 The name was probably not be- ! M 2t/3a<rroc was the Greek transla- 
stowed later than B.C. 34 or 33 — the tion of the Latin Augustus, and was 
date of Herod's closest relations with ; used throughout the East as the title 
Antony ; and we may therefore infer of the Emperor, 

that the alterations to the fortress ' 



84 Herod the Great Chap. IV. 

imperial name, Kaisarieh, have no other inhabitants than 
wild beasts, serpents, lizards, and scorpions. Herod's leaning 
to the religion of Rome was further shown by his erecting a 
temple of white marble, dedicated to Augustus, at the chief 
source of the Jordan, which had already acquired the heathen 
name of JPanium (the Cave of Pan). Around this temple 
his son Philip afterward built the city of Cassarea-Philippi, 
in honor of Tiberius. 

Herod's sons by Mariamne, Aristobulus and Alexander, were 
sent to be educated at Rome ; and he lost no opportunity of 
waiting upon Augustus, whether in his wars or his peaceful 
progresses. At the same time he maintained the closest friend- 
ship with the great minister Agrippa, so that " Csesar was 
6aid to assign Herod the next place in his favor to Agrippa ; 
Agrippa to esteem Herod higher than any of his friends, 
except Augustus." This intimacy was the cause of the in- 
troduction into the family of Herod's son, Aristobulus, of 
the name of Agrippa, which appears in the Acts of the 
Apostles. 15 He courted the people of Greece by magnificent 
donations to the temple at Olympia, and was made perpetual 
president of the Olympic games — a strange mutation for both 
Jews and Greeks, that a half -heathen king of Judaea should 
be the recognized head of the Hellenic race. 

Herod's subjects were not without some compensation for 
all these insults to their national traditions. True, he put 
down every show of opposition with relentless severity. His 
perpetual fears of the Pharisees and Essenes prompted him 
to require of them an oath of allegiance, and he knew how to 
revenge himself for their obstinate refusal. His espionage 
was always vigilant, and many murmurers disappeared for- 
ever in the prison of Hyrcania, which has been called Herod's 
Bastile. But he displayed a princely liberality. His great 
Works enriched the industrious, without adding to the bur- 
dens of the country; and the taxes were diminished by a 
third. 

The year 25 — the next after the attempt on Herod's life in 
the theatre — was one of great misfortunes. A long drought, 
followed by unproductive seasons, involved Judaea in famine, 
and its usual consequence, a dreadful pestilence. Herod took 
a noble and at the same time a most politic course, He sent 
to Egypt for corn, sacrificing for the purchase the costly 
decorations of his palace and his silver and gold plate. Ho 
was thus able to make regular distributions of corn and cloth* 

15 See the Genealogical Table. 



B.C. 20. 



Rebuilding of the Temple. 



85 



ing, on an enormous scale, for the present necessities of the 
people, as well as to supply seed for the next year's crop. 18 
The result was to remove to a great degree the animosity 
occasioned by his proceedings in the previous year. 

In this year or the next Herod took another wife, the 
daughter of an obscure priest of Jerusalem named Simon. 
Shortly before the marriage Simon was made high-priest in 
the room of Joshua, or Jesus, the son of Phaneus, who ap- 
pears to have succeeded Ananel, and was now deposed to 
make way for Herod's future father-in-law. 17 It was probably 
on the occasion of this marriage that he built a new and ex- 
tensive palace 18 immediately adjoining the old wall at the 
north-west corner of the upper city, 19 about the spot now oc- 
cupied by the Latin convent, in which, as memorials of his 
connection with Caesar and Agrippa, a large apartment, su- 
perior in size to the Sanctuary of the Temple, was named after 
each. This palace was very strongly fortified : it communi- 
cated with the three great towers on the wall erected shortly 
after, and it became the citadel, " special fortress," as Josephus 
calls it, of the upper city. A road led to it from the northern 
gate in the west wall of the Temple enclosure. 

§ 5. But his great claim to the favor of the Jews was that 
restoration of the Temple, the design of which he announced 
to the people assembled at the Passover (b.c. 20 or 19). If 
we may believe Josephus, he pulled down the whole edifice to 
its foundations and laid them anew on an enlarged scale ; but . 
the ruins still exhibit, in some parts, what seem to be the 
foundations laid by Zerubbabel, and beneath them the more 
massive substructions of Solomon. The new edifice was a 
stately pile of Grseco-Roiiian architecture, built in white mar- 
ble with gilded acroteria, It is minutely described by Jo- 
sephus, and the New Testament has made us familiar with 
the pride of the Jews in its magnificence. 20 A different feel- 
ing, however, marked the commencement of the work, which 
met with some opposition from the fear that what Herod had 
begun he would not be able to finish. He overcame all jeal- 
ousy by engaging not to pull down any part of the existing 
buildings till all the materials for the new edifice were collect- 
ed On its site. Two years appear to have been occupied in 
these preparations, among which Josephus mentions the teach* 



16 Joseph. Ant. xv. 9, § 2. 

17 Joseph. Ant. xv. 9, § 3. 

18 The old palace of the Asmonas- 
ans continued to be known as "the 



royal palace" (Joseph. Ant. xx. 

111). 

19 Joseph. B. J. v. 4, § 4. 

20 See Notes and Illustrations (B). 



86 Herod the Great Char IV 

ing some of the priests and Levites to work as masons and 
carpenters — and then the work began. 

The holy "house" (vaog), including the Porch, Sanctuary, 
and Holy of Holies, was finished in a year and a half (b.c. 16). 
Its completion, on the anniversary of Herod's inauguration, 
was celebrated by lavish sacrifices and a great feast. Yet 
even this splendid work was not likely to mislead the Jews as 
to the real spirit of the king. While he rebuilt the temple at 
Jerusalem, he rebuilt also the temple at Samaria, and made 
provision, in his new city of Cassarea, for the celebration of 
heathen worship ; and it has been supposed that the rebuild- 
ing of the Temple furnished him with the opportunity of de- 
stroying the authentic collection of genealogies which was of 
the highest importance to the priestly families. Herod, as 
appears from his public designs, affected the dignity of a 
second Solomon, but he joined the license of that monarch to 
his magnificence'; and it was said that the monument which 
he raised over the royal tombs was due to the fear which 
seized him after a sacrilegious attempt to rob them of secret 
treasures. 

About b.c. 9 — eight years from the commencement — the 
court and cloisters of the Temple were finished, and the bridge 
between the south cloister and the upper city (demolished by 
Pompey) was doubtless now rebuilt with that massive mason- 
ry of which some remains still survive. 21 At this time equally 
.magnificent works were being carried on in another part of 
the city, namely, in the old wall at the north-west corner, con- 
tiguous to the palace, where three towers of great size and 
magnificence were erected on the wall, and one as an outwork 
at a small distance to the north. The latter was called Pse- 
phinus, the three former were Hippicus, after one of his 
friends — Phasaelus, after his brother — and Mariamne, after 
his queen. 21 Phasaelus appears to have been erected first of the 
three, 22 though it can not have been begun at the time of 
Phasael's death, as that took place some years before Jerusa- 
lem came into Herod's hands. The Temple continued after- 
ward to receive fresh additions, besides the repairs of injuries 
done in frequent tumults, so that, when it was visited by our 
Lord at the beginning of his ministry (a.d. 27), it was said 
that the building had occupied the intervening forty years. 
Nor did it cease then ; for Josephus places its completion by 
Herod Agrippa II. about a.d. 65, only five years before its 
final destruction ; an act in which its finisher, and the great- 

21 For their positions sec the plan. 22 Joseph. Ant. xvii. 10, § 2 



B.C. 13. Domestic Life of Herod, 87 

grandson of its founder, was the ally of the Romans, a.d. 70. 
The great Agrippa, though a heathen, is connected with the 
Temple in another way. When on a visit to Herod, he pro- 
pitiated the Jews by offering a hecatomb of oxen, and feasted 
all the people, Herod having joined in his heathen sacrifices 
at Caesarea. During this period, in fact, Herod was drawing 
closer to his patron. In the beginning of b.c. 14 he joined 
Agrippa in the Euxine with a powerful fleet, and his services 
were rewarded by the addition of the territory to the east of 
the lake of Gennesareth, where Herod hunted the robbers of 
Trachonitis out of their mountain caves with wonderful vigor 
and relentless cruelty. Part of this region was formed into 
a tetrarchy for his brother Pheroras. He also procured from 
Agrippa the restoration of privileges and immunities to the 
Jews of the " Dispersion." On his return, in the autumn of 
the same year, he addressed the people assembled at the 
Feast of Tabernacles, and remitted them a fourth of the an- 
nual tax. 

§ 6. The eye turned from all this splendor to Herod's do- 
mestic life meets one of the most appalling spectacles in the 
pages of history. The source of all his cruelties is to be found 
in his usurpation. His jealousy was excited by the Asmo- 
naean blood which flowed in the veins of his own sons by his 
marriage with Mariamne ; and his conscience, ever reproach- 
ing him with her murder, prompted him to suspect her aven- 
gers in her children. Those who had urged him on to the 
condemnation of Mariamne had better reason for the like 
fears on their own account. So when Herod brought back 
Aristobulus and Alexander from their three years' residence 
at Rome, 23 their destruction was already half-prepared. Their 
fate was sealed by the enthusiasm of the people, who hailed in 
their graceful persons and popular manners the true scions of 
the Asmonaean house. Herod, who never displayed that mo- 
rose depravity which loves wickedness for its own sake, treat- 
ed the youths at first like a father. He married Alexander 
to Glaphyra, the daughter of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, 
and Aristobulus to his cousin Berenice, the daughter of 
Salome. Even this union did not appease Salome's jealous 
ambition. With the aid of Herod's brother, Pheroras, she 
so far wrought on his fears as to induce him to send for An- 
tipater, his eldest son by Doris, whom he had divorced to 



23 This journey to Rome took place ! Herod appears to have returned to 
immediately after the feast of the first ' Jerusalem with the young princes in 
inauguration of the Temple, and the following spring (b.c. 15). 



88 Herod the Great Chap. IV: 

marry Mariamne. Antipater proved a deadly and unscrupu* 
Ions enemy to his brothers, who were at length carried by 
Herod before the tribunal of Augustus at Aquileia (b.c. 13). 
Herod was accompanied by Nicolaits Damascenus, the inti- 
mate friend both of Augustus and himself, whose eloquence 
was so often of service to the Herodian family. This dis- 
tinguished rhetorician, a native of Damascus, and the son of 
Antipater and Stratoniee, was the companion of Herod's 
studies, and his mediator with Augustus whenever some 
especially flagrant act of the Jewish king stirred the emperor's 
indignation. His name is curiously preserved in the medi- 
eval appellation of the palm-tree (nicolai), a present of the 
finest fruit of which was made to him by Augustus on this 
occasion. Nicolaus wrote lives of Augustus and of himself, 
and a Universal History. The emperor effected a reconcilia- 
tion ; but still Antipater was placed before the sons of Ma- 
riamne in the succession to the throne ; and, being sent to 
Rome in the train of Agrippa, he tried in all his letters to re- 
new Herod's suspicions against them. Herod's return from a 
visit to Rome, in b.c. 11, was again followed by an address to 
the people assembled at the Feast of Tabernacles, in which the 
announcement of Antipater as his successor — a prince not of 
the Asmona3an blood — was recommended by new exemptions. 
The whole atmosphere of the court was poisoned with dis- 
trust. False accusers shared the fate of the accused; slaves 
were tortured to extract evidence ; and at last Alexander was 
tempted to a most improbable confession. A fresh trial took 
place at Berytus before the Roman governors of Syria, Satur- 
ninus and Volumnius, with a court of 150 assessors, by a 
majority of whom the youths were condemned unheard, and 
Herod's claim to the power of life and death over them was 
confirmed. After some hesitation he caused them to be 
strangled at Sebaste. 

In or about the year 7 occurred the affair of the Golden 
Eagle, a parallel to that of the theatre, and, like that, impor- 
tant, as snowing how strongly the Maccabsean spirit of resist- 
ance to innovation on the Jewish law still existed, and how 
vaia were any concessions in other directions, in the presence 
of such innovations. Herod had fixed a large golden eagle, 
the symbol of the Roman empire, of which Judaea was now a 
province, over. the entrance to the Sanctuary, probably at the 
same time that he inscribed the name of Agrippa on the gate. 24 
As a breach of the second commandment — more than as a 

24 Joseph. B. J. i 21, § J„ 



•B.C. 4. Herod's Last Illness. 89 

badge of dependence — this had excited the indignation of the 
Jews, and especially of two of the chief rabbis, who instigated 
their disciples to tear it down. A false report of the king's 
death was made the occasion of doing this in open day, and 
in the presence of a large number of people. Being taken be- 
fore Herod, the rabbis defended their conduct and were burn- 
ed alive. The high-priest Matthias was deposed, and Joazai 
took his place. 

To complete the series of his domestic tragedies, Herod's 
favored son, Antipater, conspired against his life with his 
favorite brother, Pheroras. The wife of Pheroras was con- 
nected with the Pharisees, 7000 of whom had refused to take 
the oath of allegiance, and she was accused of disseminating 
disloyal prophecies. Pheroras fell into disgrace ; but in his 
last illness, which soon followed, Herod treated him with a 
kindness which moved him to abandon his designs. Upon his 
death, not without suspicion of poison, Herod instituted an 
inquiry ; the whole plot was revealed, and proved by the con- 
fession of his wife. Antipater, who had gone to Rome to 
avoid suspicion, was returning to reap, as he supposed, the 
fruit of his parricide, when he was seized at Sebaste, brought 
to trial before Herod and Varus, the Roman governor of 
Syria, and condemned on the clearest evidence. 

§ 1. While his doom awaited the confirmation of Augustas, 
Herod was seized with a most painful and loathsome disease. 
The increasing torments of his ulcerated body, which derived 
no benefit from the warm baths of Callirhoe, drove him to 
new acts of frenzied cruelty ; but we may well doubt whether 
the fancy of what he might have felt does not prevail over 
sober fact in the statement, that he ordered the representa- 
tives of the chief families of Judaea to be shut up in the hip- 
podrome at Jericho, and to be put to death as soon as he ex- 
pired, that his funeral might not want mourners. 

His rage and terror were brought to a climax by a new and 
strange danger, threatening the crown which had cost him so 
much. A caravan, headed by persons of great distinction, 26 
arrived at Jerusalem, making the ominous inquiry, " Where is 
he that is born King of the Jews ? " and declaring that the 
star of his Nativity had guided them from the distant East. 
Herod well knew the significance of that title. His agitation 
was shared by all the people of Jerusalem, though doubtless 
from widely different feelings. Assembling the teachers of 
the law, he obtained their opinion, on the authority of the 

26 Who these persons were will be considered in the next book. 



00 



Herod the Great. 



Chap. IV. 



prophet Micah, that Bethlehem would be the birthplace oi 
the Messiah. Secretly calling for the strangers, and having 
learned from them the precise time of the star's appearance, 
he sent them to Bethlehem, and bade them return to inform 
him when they had found the babe, that he too might go and 
worship Him. Having in vain awaited their return, he re- 
solved to rid himself of the dreaded rival by the massacre of 
all the babes in Bethlehem and its district, from the age of 
two years old and under. The consummation of this sen- 
tence, and the escape of Jesus, belong to the next book of our 
history. We here regard the transaction from the point of 
view of Herod's life. Vast as we know the issues at stake to 
have been, we can hardly be surprised that, amid all the 
horrors of Herod's last days, the murder of some ten or twelve 
children in a small country town 26 escaped the notice of the 
Jews at the time, and of their historian afterward. 

They soon had horrors enough in their very midst. The 
embassy returned from Rome, with the consent of Augustus 
to Herod's dealing as he pleased with his guilty son, though 
the milder alternative of banishment was suggested. About 
the same time, Herod attempted suicide in a paroxysm ol 
agony. The rumor of his death spread through the palace. 
Antipater tried to bribe his jailer, who reported the offer to» 
Herod, and the tyrant's dying breath gave the order for his 
son's execution. It appears to have been in connection with 
the fate of Antipater, perhaps as the expression of his own 
disgust in yielding to the king's importunity, that Augustus 
uttered the celebrated sarcasm, " It is better to be Herod's 
hog than his son : " — f or his religion forbade his slaughtering 
the former. But, if we look more closely into the form in 
which the story is preserved, we shall find that, amid an ac- 
cidental confusion, it supplies an incidental proof that the 
massacre of Bethlehem was known at Rome. 27 After using 
his last remnant of strength to give final directions about his 
will, he expired five days after the death of Antipater, shortly 
before the Passover, b.c. 4. He had just entered on the 



26 Such is the result of a sober cal- 
culation, founded on our knowledge 
of Bethlehem. The accurate sim- 
plicity of St. Matthew (ii. 16-18) may 
be contrasted with the vague state- 
ments of the fathers that Herod slew 
"all the children in Bethlehem" 
(Justin and Origen), and with the 
exaggerated impressions made on us 
by the painters. 



27 According to the anecdote pre- 
served by Macrobius (cir. a.d. 410) 
— "Augustus, quum audisset, inter 
pueros quos in Syria Herodes, E,ex 
Judseorum, intra bimatum jussit inter- 
Jici, filium quoque ejus occisum, ait, 
' Melius est Hcrodis porcum esse, 
quam filium.' " 



B.C. 4. The Place of Herod in History. 91 

thirty-seventh year of his reign, dating from the edict which 
gave him the kingdom, and the thirty-fourth of his actual pos- 
session of the throne, dating from the death of Antigonus. 28 

§ 8. Enough has appeared of Herod's abilities and vices in 
this summary of his reign. It is, perhaps, difficult to see in 
his character any of the true elements of greatness. Some 
have even supposed that the title — the great — is a mistransla- 
tion for the elder ; *md yet on the other hand he seems to 
have possessed the good qualities of our own Henry VIII., 
with his vices. He maintained peace at home, during a long 
reign, by the vigor and timely generosity of his administra- 
tion. Abroad he conciliated the good-will of the Romans 
under circumstances of unusual difficulty. His ostentatious 
display, and even Ms arbitrary tyranny, was calculated to in- 
spire Orientals with awe. Bold and yet prudent, oppressive 
and yet profuse, he had many of the characteristics which 
make a popular hero ; and the title which may have been first 
given in admiration of successful despotism now serves to 
bring out in clearer contrast the terrible price at which the 
success was purchased. 

It remains to say a word upon his relation to the whole 
course of Divine Providence in the history of the Jews. As 
a usurper of an alien race, and that the hated race of Edom, 
and the destroyer of the Asmonasan house and kingdom, he 
cleared the ground of all who might have lawfully competed 
with Christ for the throne of David ; while his power united 
die Holy Land, in preparation for the advent of its predicted 
King. Nor was even his personal character without its bear- 
ing on the coming of the Christ. No government, except per- 
haps one that maintains its power over an enslaved but noble 
people by brute force, is much worse in its moral character 
than the people who submit to it ; and Herod is in some sense 
the representative of the deep moral degradation of the Jews. 
The religious puritanism, which the bitter lesson of the Cap- 
tivity had impressed on the Jewish Church, was still main- 
tained, though only in outward form, by the Pharisees ; and 
a remnant of its living spirit was preserved amid the fanat- 
icism of the Essenes ; but the more than half-heathen pomp 
of Herod too truly represented the worldly spirit which looked 
for an earthly kingdom as its highest hope. Nor are the 
family feuds, which stained the house of Herod with perpet- 



28 There is now no doubt that the 
common era of the birth of our Sav- 
iour is wrong by four years. Christ 
was born shortly before the death of 



Herod, and we know that the lattel 
died four years before the Christian 
era. 



92 Herod the Great Chap. IV. 

ual blood, without their deep significance. The palace gave 
the worst example, but still only an example, of that dissolu- 
tion of the bonds of nature, which the prophet Malachi had 
marked as a sign of His coming, who alone could restore 
peace. The time was evidently at hand, when "Elijah the 
prophet should be sent before the coming of the great and 
dreadful day of the Lord : to turn the heart of the fathers to 
the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, 
lest He should come and smite the earth with a curse." 29 

And, before Herod's reign had closed, both that Prophet 
and the Christ himself had been born. Their entrance into 
the world forms the subject now before us; but we shall be 
the better prepared to enter on the history of Christ and the 
Apostles, by first taking a summary view of the princes of 
Herod's house, who ruled in different parts of Palestine, with 
different degrees of power, and of the Roman dominion in 
the country, till the destruction of Jerusalem. In fact, the. 
history divides itself, at Herod's death, into two portions 
which intersect almost without mingling ; that of Christ and 
his Church, and that of the Jews as a nation. The latter be- 
longs rather to the history of the Old Covenant than of the 
New. It is the story of the last expiring effort of a noble but 
corrupted and mistaken people, to defend their supposed 
rights against the earthly masters to whose yoke they had al- 
ready bowed, and against the spiritual Lord whom they re- 
sisted because they knew him not. Perhaps the devout stu- 
dent of the spiritual conflict is too often at a disadvantage for 
want of a comprehensive view of the external relations of the 
Jewish nation. This distinction is thus insisted on by the 
eloquent historian of the Jews : — " The history of the Jews, 
after the death of Herod (not rightly named the Great) and 
the birth of Jesus, separates itself into two streams : one nar- 
row at first, and hardly to be traced in its secret windings into 
the world, but with the light of heaven upon it, and gradually 
widening till it embraces a large part of Asia, part of Africa, 
the whole of Europe, and becomes a mighty irresistible river— 
a river with many branches — gladdening and fertilizing man- 
kind, and bearing civilization, as well as holiness and happi- 
ness, in its course ; — the other at first as expansive, but gradu- 
ally shrinking into obscurity, lost in deep, almost impenetra- 
ble, ravines; sullen apparently and lonely, yet not without its 
peculiar majesty in its continuous, inexhaustible, irrepressible 
flow, and not without its own peculiar influence as an under. 

80 Mai.- i v. 5,6. 





r^\ 4 



Chap. IV. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



98 



current on the general life and progress of mankind ; . . . too 
often attempted to be cruelly dried up by violent means, or 
turned into blood, yet still emerging when seeming almost 
lost, and flowing on, as it still flows, and seems destined to 
flow. Though the Jewish and Christian history have much 
in common, they may be kept almost entirely distinct." This 
remark applies especially to what remains to be told of the 
house of Herod. 



NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 



(A.) THE HERODIAKS. [ 

In the account which is given by j 
St. Matthew (xxii. 15 ff.) and St. 
Mark (xii. 13 ff.) of the last efforts 
made by different sections of the I 
Jews to obtain from our Lord him- ' 
self the materials for his accusation, 
a party under the name of Herodians 
is represented as acting in concert J 
with the Pharisees (Matt. xxii. 16 ; j 
Mark xii. 13). St. Mark mentions 
the combination of the two parties \ 
for a similar object at -an earlier pe- j 
riod (Mark iii. 6), and in another ; 
place (viii. 15 ; cf. Luke xii. 1) he 
preserves a saying of our Lord, in : 
which "the leaven of Herod" is] 
placed in close connection with ' ' the I 
leaven of the Pharisees." In the ! 
Gospel of St. Luke, on the other 
hand, the Herodians are not brought 
forward at all by name. 

These very scanty notices of the ■ 
Evangelists as to the position of the j 
Herodians are not compensated by 
other testimonies ; yet it is not dim- ! 
cult to fix their characteristics by a 
reference to the condition of Jewish , 
feeling in the Apostolic age. There 
were probably many who saw in the j 
power of the Herodian family the j 
pledge of the preservation of their 1 



national existence in the face of Ro- 
man ambition. In proportion as 
they regarded the independent na- 
tionality of the Jewish people as the 
first condition of the fulfillment of 
its future destiny, they Avould be 
willing to acquiesce in the dominion 
of men who were themselves of for- 
eign descent, and not rigid in the 
observance of the Mosaic ritual. 
Two distinct classes might thus 
unite in supporting what was a do- 
mestic tyranny as contrasted with 
absolute dependence on Rome, those 
who saw in the Herods a protection 
against direct heathen rule, which 
was the one object of their fear, and 
those who were inclined to look with 
satisfaction upon such a compromise 
between the ancient faith and hea- 
then civilization, as Herod the Great 
and his successors had endeavored 
to realize, as the true and highest 
consummation of Jewish hopes. On 
the one side the Herodians — parti- 
sans of Herod in the widest sense of 
the term — were thus brought into 
union with the Pharisees, on the 
other, with the Sadducees. Yet 
there is no reason to suppose that 
they endeavored to form any very 
systematic harmony of the conflict- 
ing doctrines of the two sects, but 



94 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. IV. 



rather the conflicting doctrines them- 
selves were thrown into the back- 
ground by what appeared to be a 
paramount political necessity. Such 
coalitions have been frequent in 
every age ; and the rarity of the al- 
lusions to the Herodians, as a mark- 
ed body, seems to show that this, 
like similar coalitions, had no en- 
during influence as the foundation 
of a party. The feelings which led 
to the coalition remained, but they 
were incapable of animating the 
common action of a united body for 
any length of time. 



(B.) TEMPLE OF HEROD. 

(See Plan, p. 76.) 

For our knowledge of the last and 
greatest of the Jewish Temples we 
are indebted almost wholly to the 
works of Josephus, with an occasion- 
al hint from the Talmud. 

The Temple or Naos itself was in 
dimensions and arrangement very 
similar to that of Solomon, or rather 
that of Zerubbabel — more like the 
latter ; but this was surrounded by 
an inner enclosure of great strength 
and magnificence, measuring as near- 
ly as can be made out 180 cubits by 
240, and adorned by porches and ten 
gate-ways of great magnificence ; and 
beyond this again was an outer en- 
closure measuring externally 400 cu- 
bits each way, which was adorned 
with porticoes of greater splendor 
than any we know of as attached to 
any temple of the ancient world : all 
showing how strongly Roman influ- 
ence was at work in enveloping with 
heathen magnificence the simple tem- 
plar arrangements of a Semitic peo- 
ple, which, however, remained near- 
ly unchanged amid all this external 
incrustation. 

The Temple was certainly situ- 
ated in the S.W. angle of the area 
now known as the Ilaram area at 



Jerusalem, and its dimensions were 
what Josephus states them to be — 
400 cubits, or one stadium, each 
way.* 

At the time when Herod rebuilt 

it, he enclosed a space "twice as 

large" as that before occupied by the 

J Temple and its courts, an expression 

j that probably must not be taken too 

j literally, at least if we are to depend 

j on the measurements of Hecatseus. 

I According to them, the whole area 

I of Herod's Temple was between four 

and five times greater than that 

which preceded it. What Herod did 

apparently was to take in the whole 

space between the Temple and the 

city wall on its eastern side, and to 

add a considerable space on the north 

and south, to support the porticoes 

which he added there. 

As the Temple terrace thus be- 
came the principal defense of the 
city on the east side, there were no 
gates or openings in that direction, 
and being situated on a sort of 
rocky brow — as evidenced from its 
appearance in the vaults that bound 
it on this side — it was at all later 
times considered unattackable from 
the eastward. The north side, too, 
where not covered by the fortress 
Antonia, became part of the defenses 
of the city, and was likewise without 
external gates. On the south side, 
which was enclosed by the wall of 
Ophel, there were double gates near- 
ly in the centre. These gates still 
exist at a distance of about 365 feet 
from the south-western angle, and 
are perhaps the only architectural 
j features of the Temple of Herod 
which remain insitv. This entrance 
consists of a double archway of Cy- 
clopean architecture on the level of 
the ground, opening into a square 
vestibule measuring 40 feet each way. 
From this a double tunnel, nearly 

* Comp. O. T. Hist. ch. xxii. § 5, etc., and 
ch. xxvii. Notes and 111. (A), concerning thJ> 
Temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel. 



Chap. IV. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



95 



200 feet in length, leads to a flight 
of steps which rise to the surface in 
the court of the Temple, exactly at 
that gate-way of the inner Temple 
which led to the altar, and is the one 
of the four gate-ways on this side by 
which any one arriving from Ophel 
would naturally wish to enter the 
inner enclosure. We learn from the 
Talmud that the gate of the inner 
Temple to which this passage led 
was called the "Water Gate;" and 
it is interesting to be able to identi- 
fy a spot so prominent in the de- 
scription of Nehemiah (xii. 37). 
Toward the west there were four 
gate-ways to the external enclosure 
of the Temple, and the positions of 
three of these can still be traced with 
certainty. The first or most southern 
led over the bridge, the remains of 
which were identified by Dr. llobin- 
son (of which a view is given at the 
head of the next chapter), and join- 
ed the Stoa Basilica of the Temple 
with the royal palace. The second 
was that discovered by Dr. Barclay, 
270 feet from the S.W. angle, at a 
level of 17 feet below that of the 
southern gates just described. The 
site of the third is so completely cov- 
ered by the buildings of the Meckme 
that it has not yet been seen, but 
it will be found between 200 and 
250 feet from the N. W. angle of the 
Temple area ; for, owing to the 
greater width of the southern porti- 
co beyond that on the northern, the 
Temple itself was not in the centre 
of its enclosure, but situated more 
toward the north. The fourth was 
that which led over the causeway 
which still exists at a distance of 
600 feet from the south-western an-, 
gle. 

Cloisters. — The most magnificent 
part of the Temple, in an architect- 
ural point of view, seems certainly 
to have been the cloisters which 
were added to the outer court when 
it was enlarged by Ilcrod. The 



cloisters in the west, north, and east 
sides were composed of double rows 
of Corinthian columns, 25 cubits or 
37 feet 6 inches in height, with flat 
roofs, and resting against the outer 
wall of the Temple. These, howev- 
er, were immeasurably surpassed in 
magnificence by the royal porch or 
Stoa Basilica, which overhung the 
southern wall. It consisted of a 
nave and two aisles, that toward the 
Temple being open, that toward the 
country closed by a wall. The 
breadth of the centre aisle was 45 
feet ; of the side aisles 30 from cen- 
tre to centre of the pillars ; their 
height 50 feet, and that of the cen- 
tre aisle 100 feet. Its section was 
thus something in excess of that of 
York Cathedral, while its total length 
was one stadium or 600 Greek feet, 
or 100 feet in excess of York, or our 
largest Gothic cathedrals. This mag- 
nificent structure was supported by 
162 Corinthian columns. 

The court of the Temple was very 
nearly a square. It may have been 
exactly so, for we have not all the 
details to enable us to feel quite cer- 
tain about it. The Middoth says it 
was 187 cubits E. and W., and 137 
N. and S. To the eastward of this 
was the court of the women. The 
gi-eat ornament of these inner courts 
seems to have been their gate-ways, 
the three especially on the north 
and south leading to the Temple 
court. These, according to Jose- 
phus, were of great height, strongly 
fortified and ornamented Avith great 
elaboration. But the wonder of all 
was the great eastern gate leading 
from the court of the women to the 
upper court. It was in all probabil- 
ity the one called the "Beautiful 
Gate " in the New Testament. 

Immediately within this gate-way 
stood the altar of burnt-offerings. 
Both the Altar and the Temple were 
enclosed by a low parapet one cubit 
in height, placed so as to keep the 



96 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. IV. 



from the priests 
were performing 



people separate 
while the latter 
their functions. 

Within this last enclosure, toward 
the westward, stood the Temple it- 
self. As before mentioned, its in^ 
ternal dimensions were the same as 



those of the Temple of Solomon,, 
There is no reason for doubting that 
the Sanctuary always stood on the 
identically same spot in which it 
had been placed by Solomon a thou- 
sand years before it was rebuilt by 
Herod. 




(Capital of Pilkir iu Vestibule of the Southern Entrance of Herod's Tccapte. 




Remains of Arch of Bridge of the Temple. (See p. 94.) 



CHAPTER V. 

SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS, FROM THE DEATH OF HEROD 
TO THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. B.C. 4-A.D. 10. 



§ 1. Family and testament of Herod — Archelaus and Antipas — Collisions 
with the Romans at Jerusalem — Augustus confirms Herod's will. § 2. 
Archelaus ethnarch of Judeea — His tyranny and banishment. § 3. 
Herod Antipas tetrarch of Galilee — His relations to Herodias and 
John the Baptist — War with Aretas — Joins with Pilate in condemning 
Christ — His deposition and banishment. § 4. Herod Philip tetrarch 
of Northern Peraea — The city of Csesarea Philippi. § 5. Judaea under 
Roman Procurators — i. Sabinus — ii. Coponius, under Quirinus (Cy- 
renius) prefect of Syria — Census — Pollution of the Temple — iii. Am- 
bivius — iv. Annius Ruftts — v. Valerius Gratus — vi. Pontius Pi- 
latus — Caiaphas high-priest — Pilate's provocations and outrages 
against the Jews — Pilate and Christ — His recall and banishment — Vi- 
tellius prefect of Syria — His benefits to the Jews — Death of Tiberius 
and accession of Caligula — Marcellus procurator of Judasa — The 
Jews persecute the Christians. § 6. Petronius, prefect of Syria, or. 
dered to erect a statue of Caligula in the Temple — The emperor's 
claims to divine worship in all the provinces, resisted by the Jews — 
Tumults at Alexandria — The Greeks encouraged by the prefect Flac- 
cus — Sufferings and massacre of the Jews — Recall of Flaccus — Depu- 
tation to Caligula, headed by Philo — Philo's account of their extraor- 
dinary reception — Resistance in Judaea — The decree suspended — Death 
of Caligula. § 7. Herod Agrippa I. made king of Judaea by Claudius 
— Imperial edict of toleration for the Jews — Agrippa's Jewish policy — 
Fortification of Jerusalem — Martyrdom of St. James — Power and mag- 
nificence of Agrippa. § 8. -Judaea again under Roman Procurators — 
E 



98 The Idumcean Dynasty. Chap. V. 

Herod Agrippa II. tetrarch of Eastern Palestine — His character and 
influence with the Jews — Agrippa and Paul — His splendid buildings — 
His sisters Berenice and Drusilla — Takes part with the Romans in the 
Jewish War — Retirement to Rome and death. § 9. Roman Procura- 
tors — Cuspius Fadus — Famine in Judaea — Paul and Barnabas at Je- 
rusalem — Ventidius Cumanus — Tumult at the Passover — Felix — 
The Sicarii or Assassins — Murder of the high-priest — General disorder 
— Felix and Paul — Tyranny of Felix — Massacre at Caesarea, a chief 
cause of the Jewish War — Porcius Festus — His able and upright 
government — Judgment of St. Paul — Affair of Agrippa's Wall — Al- 
binus and Ananus — Persecution of the Christians, and death of St. 
James the Less — Anarchy at Jerusalem. § 10. Gessius Florus, the 
last and worst of the procurators — Insurrection at Jerusalem — Inter- 
position of Costius Gallus — Mediation of Agrippa — Renunciation of 
allegiance and beginning of the Jewish War — Factions in Jerusalem — 
The assassins and the zealots. § 11. Siege of Jerusalem by Titus — 
Burning of the Temple, and destruction of the city. § 12. Supple- 
mental narrative— Insurrections under Trajan and Hadrian — Founda- 
tion of JElia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem — Julian's attempt to 
rebuild the Temple. _ 

§ 1. In order to understand fully the history of our Saviour 
and his Apostles, it is necessary, for the reasons stated at 
the close of the preceding chapter, to give previously a brief 
account of the secular history of the Jews during this period. 

The family of Herod is shown in the genealogical table 
(p. 15). Of his ten wives, we need only notice the offspring 
of the first five, (i.) He married Doris before his accession 
to the throne ; and her only son Anttpater was, as w^e have 
seen, the last victim of his father's dying rage, (ii.) Aris- 
tobulus, his eldest son by 3fariamne, the granddaughter of 
Hyrcanus, was the parent of a large family, and from him 
were descended the two Agrippas, the first of whom was the 
" King Herod " who slew James and imprisoned Peter ; ' the 
second, the "King Agrippa" before whom Paul pleaded. 2 
(iii.) After the judicial murder of Mariamne, Herod married 
another Mariamne, daughter of the high-priest, Simon: her 
son was Herod Philip, whose marriage with his niece 
Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, followed by her divorce 
of him to marry his half-brother, Herod Antipas, led to the 
martyrdom of John the Baptist. He is often confounded 
with his half-brother Philip, the tetrarch of Ituraea. (iv.) 
His next wife, Malthace, a Samaritan, was the mother of 
Herod Antipas and Archelaus, of whom we have presently 
to speak, (v.) By Cleopatra he had two sons, the younger 
of whom was Philip, the tetrarch of Ituraea and the adja- 
cent districts, with Trachonitis. (vi.-x.) His other wives and 

* Acts xii. J Acts xxv. 



B.C. 4. Family of Herod the Great 99 

their children are of no consequence in the history. These 
complicated relations will be made clearer by the following 
conspectus of the chief personages with whom the history 
is concerned, for the four generations of the family : 

A. Herod the Great. 

Wives. Sons. 

*T %°™ ••;••:•••- J" Antipater ) Executed by their father in 

h. Manamne grandd. of Hyr- 2. Aristobulus V hU life . t 4 e . 

canus II. 3. Alexander ) 

iii. Manamne, d. of Simon 4. Herod Philip I Lived as a private person. 

m. Herodias. 

iv. Malthace, a Samaritan, 5. Herod Antlpas Tetrarch of Galilee. 

G. Archelaes Ethnarch of Judaea. 

v. Cleopatra 7. Herod Philip II Tetrarch of Northern Pe. 

m. Salome, d. of Phil- rsea, etc. 

ip I. and Herodias. 

B. Children of Aristobulus. 

1. Herod Agrippa I King of Judsea. 

2. Herodias, m. — 

(1) Herod Philip I. 

(2) Herod Antipas. 

C Children of Herod Agrippa I. 

1 . Herod Agrippa II Tetrarch of N. Persea, etc. 

(titular king). 

2. Berenice Named in Acts xxv. 23. 

3. Deusilla, m. to Fells. Named in Acts xxiv. 24. 

During his last illness, Herod made a will in favor of the 
sons of Malthace, who had been educated at Rome, and had 
been at first excluded from the inheritance through the accu- 
sations of Antipater. It was this unexpected arrangement 
which led to the retreat of Joseph to Galilee 3 on his return 
with Mary and Jesus from Egypt. The elder of them, Herod 
Antipas, was first named by Herod his successor ; but the last 
change in the king's will transferred that dignity to Arche- 
laus, leaving to Antipas the government of Galilee and Peraea 
(in the narrower sense), with the title of tetrarch. The north- 
ern part of the trans-Jordanic country, including Iturasa, 
Gaulonitis, and Batanrea, with Trachonitis, were made a 
tetrarchy for Philip, the son of Cleopatra. Lastly, Herod's 
will left an ample provision to his sister Salome, whose in- 
trigues had been so fatal to his family, and large legacies to 
Augustus and his wife Julia. Herod Philip, the son of the 
second Mariamne, was excluded from all benefit of his father's 
will, in revenge for the supposed treason of his mother; as 
were also the descendants of the first Mariamne. 

Pending the ratification of Herod's will by Augustus, 
Archelaus succeeded to his father's power. The Jewish 

3 Matt. ii. 22. 



100 The Idumcean Dynasty. Chap. v. 

princes were released from the hippodrome, and the funeral 
of Herod was celebrated with great splendor. The funeral 
is thus described by Dean Milman : — " The lifeless remains of 
Herod seemed to retain his characteristic magnificence. The 
body was borne aloft on a bier, which was adorned with cost- 
ly precious stones. The linen was of the richest dye ; 
the winding-sheet of purple. It still wore the diadem, and, 
above that, the golden crown of royalty : the sceptre was in 
its hand. The sons and relatives of Herod attended the bier. 
All the military force followed, distributed according to their 
nations. First, his body-guard — then his foreign mercenaries, 
Thracians, Germans, Gauls — then, the rest of the army, in war 
array. Last came five hundred of his court-officers, bearing 
sweet spices, with which the Jews embalmed the dead. In 
this pomp the procession passed on, by slow stages, to the 
Herodium, a fortified palace, about twenty miles from Jer- 
icho." 

At the end of the seven days' mourning, during which it 
was rumored that the pious duties of the day were relieved 
by nights of revelry, Archelaus gave a funeral feast to the 
people, and then made a solemn entry into the Temple. His 
speech, in which he assumed a tone of great moderation, and 
promised relief from his father's tyranny, was received with 
loud applause, not unmingled with cries for the redress of 
grievances. " Some called for a diminution of the public 
burdens ; others for the release of the prisoners, with whom 
Herod had crowded the dungeons ; some more specifically for 
the entire abandonment of the taxes on the sale of commodi- 
ties in the markets, which had been levied with the utmost 
rigor. Archelaus listened with great affability, promised 
largely, and, having performed sacrifice, retired." 

The disaffection, which was doubtless inflamed by disap- 
pointment of the hopes founded on the milder character of Her- 
od Antipas, the expected heir, broke out into open tumult while 
the two brothers were preparing to start for Rome, the one 
to seek the emperor's confirmation of Herod's will, the other 
to urge his claims. At the Feast of the Passover, when 
Jerusalem was always filled with devout Jews, whose zeal was 
inflamed by their numbers and by the exaltation of feeling 
due to the festival, a cry was raised for vengeance on behalf 
of those whom Herod had executed for pulling down the 
eagle. The multitude were only dispersed by armed force, 
with the slaughter of 3000 men, and the feast was broken off. 
Archelaus now set out for Rome. In his train were Nicolas 
of Damascus, whose eloquence had so well served his father, 



B.c, 3. Sabinus and Varus at Jerusalem. 101 

and Salome, who was secretly prepared to urge the claims of 
Herod Antipas. 

Meanwhile the rapacity of the Roman officials grasped 
at what appeared an easy prey. Even while preparing to 
embark at Caesarea, Archelaus had met Sabinus, the procura- 
tor of Syria, on his way to claim the late king's treasures. 
His march, suspended at the entreaties of Archelaus and the 
command of Varus, the prefect of Syria, was resumed as soon 
as the former had sailed ; and his exactions gave the zealots 
the provocation or pretext for a tumult, which was only put 
down by" the interference of Varus. Sabinus, left still in com- 
mand at Jerusalem, soon provoked a new insurrection at the 
Feast of Pentecost, when the city was again rilled with zealots 
bent on avenging their repulse at the Passover. They formed 
a regular encampment round the Temple, and besieged 
Sabinus and his legion, probably in the Antonia. The 
Romans made a sally against the Temple, burned the cloisters 
of the outer court with its defenders, broke into the sanctu- 
ary, and plundered the sacred treasures; but the Jews, 
furious at the sacrilege, still besieged Sabinus and his legion. 
The anarchy of the country was inflamed by the troops of 
Herod, who wandered about in bands, that fought and plun- 
dered as they pleased. To these elements of confusion was 
added the expectation of some great deliverer, — a feeling 
which now reached its climax, — and at the very time when 
the true Saviour was concealed in Egypt, false Messiahs were 
assuming the diadem, and gathering troops of banditti. 
Meanwhile Varus advanced to the relief of Sabinus, at the 
head of two legions, and among the auxiliaries were some 
Arabian bands, who devastated the country. The insurgents 
laid down their arms at his approach ; and Sabinus, ashamed 
to meet him, set off for Rome. Two thousand of the ring- 
leaders were crucified, and others sent to Rome for trial. It 
had become plain that, whatever might be the decision of 
Augustus, he himself was the only master of Judaea. 

The cause at issue before him was pleaded by the eloquence 
of Nicolas and Herod Philip (the elder) on the part of Arche- 
laus, and by Salome and her son Antipater on that of Antipas. 
During its progress a deputation of 500 Jews appeared at the 
emperor's tribunal, praying for the suppression of royalty and 
the restoration of their liberties ; and the statement that they 
were supported by no less than 8000 of their countrymen at 
Rome indicates the number and influence of the Jews settled 
in the capital. At length, Augustus confirmed the will of 
Herod in all essential points. Archelaus was established in 



102 The Idumcean Dynasty. Chap.Y, 

the government of Judaea, with Idumaea and Samaria, forming 
about half the kingdom of Herod, and bringing in a revenue 
of 600 talents. He was to rule under the title of HJthnarch, 
with the promise of that of King if he proved worthy of it. 
Of the chief cities in his territory, he retained Jerusalem, Se- 
baste, Csesarea, and Joppa; while Gaza, Gadara, and Hippo 
were made Roman towns under the prefect of Syria; and 
Salome received Jamnia, Azotus, Phasaelis, and a palace in 
Ascalon. Herod Antipas was confirmed in the tetrarchy of 
Galilee and Peraea, with a revenue of 200 talents, and Philip 
in that of Auranitis and Trachonitis. 

§ 2. We have seen that the first news of the succession of 
Archelaus led the parents of our Lord to turn aside on their 
way back from Egypt, and to place their precious charge un- 
der the milder government of Herod Antipas. 4 The fear of 
Joseph may be taken as an expression of the popular distrust 
of Archelaus, which was amply justified by the continued 
tyranny and disorder of his nine years' reign. At first, he 
showed a desire to conciliate the Jews by displacing Joazar, 
whom Herod had made high-priest after the affair of the 
eagle, in favor of his brother Eleazar. But the adherents of 
the Law were alienated by the marriage of Archelaus to 
Glaphyra, his brother Alexander's widow, for whom he di- 
vorced his wife Mariamne; and at length his tyranny pro- 
voked his subjects to appeal to Augustus. Archelaus was 
summoned suddenly to Rome, and banished to Vienna ( Vi- 
enne) in Gaul (a.d. 7). 5 This sentence put a final end to the 
Jewish monarchy ; for the restoration of a nominal kingdom 
for a few years under Herod Agrippa I. (a.d. 41-44) can only 
be viewed as an episode in the Roman domination. " The 
sceptre had departed from Judah." 

§ 3. Before pursuing the history of Judaea as a Roman 
province, it will be convenient to follow the course of the two 
other sons of Herod, who reigned in Palestine according to 
his will. Herod Antipas, the brother of Archelaus, was con- 
firmed by Augustus, as we have seen, in the tetrarchy of Gal- 
ilee and Peraea, which had been assigned to him by his father's 
will, and hence he is mentioned in the Gospels by the style 
of Herod the Tetrarch. 6 His whole importance is derived 

4 Matt. i. 22. It is to be observed j at Vienne ; but Jerome relates that 
that the choice of Galilee as a resi- I he was shown the sepulchre of Ar- 
dence is ascribed to a divine warn- j chelaus near Bethlehem. If so, he 
ing in a dream ; but the previous must have returned as a private man 
fear of going into Judaea is Joseph's to Judaea, and there have died. 
own. 6 Matt. xiv. 1; Luke iii. 1, 19; 

6 He is generally said to have died i Acts xiii.l. The " king " (fiaoiktvq} 



B.C. 3. 



Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee. 



103 



from his two appearances in the Gospel history, as first the 
hearer and then the murderer of John the Baptist, and as taking 
part with Pilate in the condemnation of our Lord. The first 
of these crimes was due to the fatal influence of Herodias, 
which at last brought him to his ruin. He had married a 
daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia Petrsea (the same from 
whose governor at Damascus St. Paul was afterward in dan- 
ger). While stiU living with her, he formed a connection of 
the most disgraceful character in the eye of the Jewish law. 
The notorious Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, the son of 
Mariamne and Herod the Great, and consequently sister of 
Herod Agrippa I., was married to Herod Philip, who was her 
step-uncle, being the son of Herod and the second Mariamne ; 7 
and she now deserted Philip to marry Herod Antipas, who 
stood to her in the same relation. Besides that her husband 
and his wife were both alive, Antipas, as the half-brother of 
Philip, was already connected with Herodias by an affinity so 
close, that there was only one case contemplated in the law of 
Moses where it could be set aside, namely, when the married 
brother had died childless. 8 Now Herodias had already one 
child, Salome, by Philip. Well therefore may she be charged 
by Josephus with the intention of confounding her country's 
institutions, and well may John the Baptist have remonstrated 
against the enormity of such a connection with the tetrarch, 
whose conscience would certainly seem to have been less 
hardened than hers; for he "feared" his reprover, whose 
preaching he had " heard gladly," and though these impres- 
sions did not avail to keep him from adding murder to adul- 
tery, he "was sorry" to commit the crime. 9 Aretas made 
war to avenge his daughter ; and we have the express testimo- 
ny of Josephus, that the defeat of Herod, with the loss of near- 
ly all his army, was viewed by the Jews as a judgment for 
John's murder. 10 

Free from his father's tyrannical temper, Herod Antipas as> 
pired to be the patron and protector of the Jews, and he ven- 
tured on an open quarrel with the Roman procurator, proba- 
bly concerning those " Galileans whose blood Pilate had min- 
gled with their sacrifices." " Herod courted favor with the 

tier of Aretas and Herod, looking 
down upon the Dead Sea from the 
south (Robinson, i. p. 570, etc.). 

10 Jos. Ant. xviii. 5. 

11 Luke xiii. 1, xxiii. 12. Of this 
event, rendered so memorable by 
our Lord's application of it, we havo 
no further information. It musf 



of Mark vi. 1 4 must be regarded as 
a title of courtesy. 

7 See the Genealogical Table, p. 99. 

8 See Lev. xviii. 16, xx. 21 ; and 
for the exception, Deut. xxv. 5 foil. 

9 Matt. xiv. 9 ; Mark vi. 20. Jo- 
sephus states that John was executed 
at Machaerus, a fortress on the fron- 



104 The Idumcean Dynasty. Chap. V 

strict Jews by his visit to Jerusalem at the Passover ; and 
the Roman procurator thought it prudent to avail himself of 
such an opportunity for a reconciliation by sending Jesus be- 
fore Herod, who, as tetrarch, had jurisdiction over a Galilean, 
and as the head of the Herodian house, might gratify his ha- 
tred of "the king of the Jews." Such was the conjunction of 
political interests and passions, by which " both Herod and 
Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, 
were gathered together," to fulfill the divine counsels as fore- 
told by David. 12 " 

These two chief passages of his life reveal the character of 
this weak, sensual, and superstitious prince, whose cunning was 
stamped by the Saviour with the epithet " that fox :" 13 who 
would have been pleased to have kept both John and Jesus as 
prophets at his court, but was led by wanton weakness to sac- 
rifice the one, and through the terror engendered by remorse, 
"would have killed" the other, 14 over whom he at last in- 
dulged his spite, when he saw him safe as a prisoner to Pilate. 
What is left untold of his character and deeds is summed up 
in the pregnant phrase, which St. Luke adds to the record of 
his adultery with Herodias, " all the wickedness which Herod 
had done." 15 

At length the favors heaped by the emperor Caligula (who 
succeeded Tiberius in A.r>. 37) upon his friend and comrade, 
Herod Agrippa, 16 excited the jealous ambition of Herod An- 
tipas. At the instigation of Herodias, he sailed with her to 
Rome, nominally to petition for the same royal title which had 
been conferred upon his nephew, but really to intrigue against 
him. But Agrippa, the bosom friend of Caligula, met the 
plot by a charge of treason against his uncle ; and Antipas 
was banished to Lugdunum in Gaul 17 (a.d. 39). It deserves 

have occurred at some feast at Jeru- " This town is probably Lugdu- 
salem, in the outer court of the Tem- num Convenarum, a town of Gaul, 
pie, since the blood of the worship- situated on the right bank of the 
ers was mingled with their sacrifices ; Garonne, at the foot of the Pyrenees, 
but the silence of Josephus about it ! now St. Bertrand de Comminges (Mur- 
seems to show that riots and massa- j ray, Handb. of France, p. 314) ; Eu- 
cres on such occasions were so fre- j sebius, H. E. i. 11, says Vienne, con- 
quent that it was needless to recount ; founding Antipas with Archelaus ; 



them all. 

12 Acts iv. 25-28, with express ref- 
erence to Psalm ii. 1, 2. 

13 Luke xiii. 32. 

14 Luke xiii. 31 : comp. Mark vi. 
16: "It is John whom I beheaded : 



Burton (on Matt. xiv. 3), Alford, 
and moderns in general, Lyon. In 
Josephus (B. J. ii. 9, § 6), Antipas 
is said to have died in Spain, appar- 
ently, from the context, the land of 
his exile. A town on the frontiers, 



he is risen from the dead." j therefore, like the above, would 6at> 

w Luke iii. 19. 1G See below, § 7. I isfy both passages. 



B C. 3. Philip the Tetrarch. 105 

to be recorded of Herodias, that she preferred sharing the ex- 
ile of Antipas, till death ended his reverses, to remaining with 
her brother Agrippa, and partaking of his elevation. 18 

Tho city of Tiberias, which Antipas founded and named 
in honor of the emperor, was the most conspicuous monument 
of his long reign; but, like the rest of the Herodian family, 
he showed his passion for building cities in several places, re- 
storing Sepphoris, near Tabor, which had been destroyed in 
the wars after the death of Herod the Great, 19 and Beth- 
aramptha (Beth-haram) in Persea, which he named Julias, 
" from the wife of the emperor." 20 

§4. Herod Philip II. 31 was the son of Herod the Great 
and Cleopatra. Like his half-brothers Antipas and Archelaus, 
he was brought up at home, and on the death of his father 
advocated the claims of Archelaus before Augustus. He re- 
ceived as his own government " Batanasa, Trachonitis, Auran- 
itis (Gaulonitis), and some parts about Jamnia," 22 with the 
title of tetrarch. His rule was distinguished by justice and 
moderation, 23 and he appears to have devoted himself entirely 
to the duties of his office without sharing in the intrigues 
which disgraced his family. 24 He built a new city on the site 
of Paneas, near the sources of the Jordan, which he called 
Cgesarea, 25 and raised Bethsaida (in lower Gaulonitis) to the 
rank of a city under the title of Julias, and died there a.d. 34. 26 
He married Salome, the daughter of Philip I. and Herodias, 
but, as he left no children, his dominions were added at his 
death to the Roman province of Syria. 

The city of Caesarea Philippi, chosen by Philip the tetrarch 
as the site of his villas and palaces, beside his father's temple 

18 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 7, § 2. | Jerome (ad Matt. I. c.) ; and the con- 

10 Jos. Ant. xvii. 12, § 9, xviii. 2, j fusion was the more easy, because 

§ I. . the son of Mariamne was excluded 

20 Jos. Ant. xviii. 2, § 1 ; Hieron. | from all share in his father's posses- 
Euseb. Chron. a.d. 29, Livias. sions (ri/c SiaOrjKtjg k'^Xaxpev) in eon- 

21 The numeral is used to distin- sequence of his mother's treachery 
guish him from his half-brother Her- ! (Joseph. B. J. i. 30, § 7), and lived 
od Philip I. (<&iAi7T7n>c, Markvi. 17), I afterward in a private station. 

the son of Herod the Great and Ma- j 22 Joseph. B. J. ii. 6, § 3 ; Luke 
riamne the daughter of a high-priest | iii. 1, ^iKi-n-irox) . . . rtrpapxovvrog 
Simon (Joseph. Ant. xviii. 6, § 4), j rfjg 'Irovpaiag icai TpaxwviriSog %w- 
the husband of Herodias, and father J pag. 



of Salome. He is called only Herod 
by Josephus, but the repetition of 
the name Philip is fully justified by 
the frequent recurrence of names in 
the Herodian family (e. g. Antipater). 
The two Philips were confounded by 
E2 



Joseph. Ant. xvii. 2, § 4. 

24 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 5, § 6. 

25 Kaivapeia y &i\i7nrov, Matt, xvi 
13 ; Mark viii. 27. 

26 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 5, § 6. 



106 The Idumcean Dynasty. Chap. V. 

to Augustus, is distinguished not only by the unrivaled bean- 
ty of its site, but also by its sacred associations. " As it is 
the northernmost frontier of Palestine, so it is the northern- 
most limit of the journeys of our Lord. ... It must at least 
have been in its neighborhood that the confession of Peter 
was made ; the rock on which the temple of Augustus stood, 
and from which the streams of the Jordan issue, may possi- 
bly have suggested the words which now run round the dome 
of St. Peter's." 27 

§ 5. Judaea, including Samaria, was reduced, on the banish- 
ment of Archelaus, to an ordinary Roman province under a 
procurator subordinate to the prefect of Syria. 28 He resided, 
not at Jerusalem, but at Csesarea on the coast. 29 Sabinus 
had already held the office during the absence of Archelaus, 
on whose deposition Coponius accompanied Quirinus to the 
country. Quirinus (the Cyrenius of the N". T.) — now for the 
second time prefect of Syria 30 — was charged with the unpop- 
ular measure of the enrolment or assessment of the inhabitants 
of Judaea. Notwithstanding the riots which took place else- 
where, at Jerusalem the enrolment was allowed to proceed 
without resistance, owing to the prudence of Joazar, again 
high-priest for a short time. One of the first acts of the new 
governor had been to take formal possession of the state vest- 
ments of the high-priest, worn on the three Festivals and on 

27 Matt. xvi. 13; Mark viii. 27 ; by his legate. In the senatorial! prov- 
Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 399. ! inces, governed by proconsuls, the 
Dean Stanley suggests that the j corresponding duties were discharged 
"high mountain," on which the by quasstors. Yet it appears that 
Transfiguration took place six days sometimes procurators were appoint- 
later, may have been Hermon, which cd in those provinces also to collect 
towers above the sources of the Jor- certain dues of the Jiscus (the em- 
dan, and is the only mountain that : peror's special revenue), as distin- 
deserves the name in Palestine. I guished from those of the cerarium 

- 8 A procurator (£-irpo7roc, Philo, I (the revenue administered by the 
Leg. ad Caium, and Joseph. B. J. i senate). Sometimes in a small ter- 
ii. 9, § 2 ; but less correctly r)yefiu>v, \ ritory, especially in one contiguous 
Matt, xxvii. 2 ; and Joseph. Ant. \ to a larger province and dependent 
xviii. 3, § 1) was generally a Roman | upon it, the procurator was head of 
knight, appointed to act under the j the administration, and had full mili- 



governor of a province as collector of 
the revenue, and judge in causes con- 
nected with it. Strictly speaking, 
procuratores C&saris were required 
only in the imperial provinces, i. e.. 



tary and judicial authority, though 
he was responsible to the governor 
of the neighboring province. For 
the governors of Syria see Notes and 
Illustrations. 



those which, according to the consti- j 29 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 3, § 1. 
tution of Augustus, were reserved for I :0 Concerning the vexed question 
the special administration of the em- of his first prefecture, see Notes and 
peror, without the intervention of the Illustrations to Chap. VI. 
senate or the people, and governed i 



A.D. 26-37. Pontius Pilate Procurator. 107 

the Day of Atonement Since the building of the Baris by 
the Maccabees these robes had always been kept there, a cus- 
tom continued since its reconstruction by Herod. But hence- 
forward they were to be put up after use in an underground 
stone chamber, under the seal of the priests, and in charge of 
the captain of the guard. Seven days before use they were 
brought out, to be consigned again to the chamber after the 
ceremony was over. 31 

Two incidents at once most opposite in their character, and 
in their significance to that age and to ourselves, occurred 
during the procuratorship of Coponius. First, in the year 8, 
the finding of Christ in the Temple. Annas had been made 
high-priest about a year before. The second occurrence must 
ha\^e been a most distressing: one to the Jews, unless they had 
b'ecome inured to such things. But of this we can not so exact- 
ly fix the date. It was nothing less than the pollution of the 
Temple by some Samaritans, who secretly brought human 
bones and strewed them about the cloisters during the night 
of the Passover. 32 Up to this time the Samaritans had been 
admitted to the Temple ; they were henceforth excluded. 

In or about a.d. 10 Coponius was succeeded by M. Ambivius, 
and he by Annius Rufus. In a.d. 14 the emperor Augustus 
died, and with Tiberius came in a new procurator, Valerius 
Gratus, who held office till 26, when he was replaced by Pon- 
tius Pilatus. During this period the high-priests had been 
numerous, 33 but it is only necessary here to say that when Pilate 
arrived at his government the office was held by Joseph Caia- 
phas, who had been appointed but a few months before. The 
name of Pilate indicates that he was connected, by descent or 
adoption, with the gens of the Pontii, first conspicuous in 
Roman history in the person of C. Pontius Telesinus, the great 
Samnite general. 34 He was the sixth Roman procurator of 
Judaea, and under him our Lord worked, suffered, and died, 
as we learn not only from the obvious Scriptural authorities, 
but from Tacitus, 35 — " Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per proc- 
uratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat." 36 The 

31 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 4, § 3. 1 comp. "pilata agmina," Virg. JEn. 

32 The mode of pollution adopt- xii. 121. (2) As contracted from pi- 
ed by Josiah toward the idolatrous ; leatus. The fact that the pileus or 
shrines. J cap was the badge of manumitted 

33 Their names and succession will slaves (comp. Suetonius, Nero, c. 57, 
be found in the 0. T. History, Appen- 1 Tiber, c. 4), makes it probable that 
dix to Book III. § 3. Notes and III. j the epithet marked him out as a lib-. 

34 The cognomen Pilatus has re- j ertus, or as descended from one. 
ceived two explanations. (1) As i ^ A nn. xv. 44. 

armed with the pilum or javelin ; | 30 Of the early history of Pilate wp 



108 Judcea under the Romans. Chap. V. 

freedom from disturbance, which marks the preceding twenty 
years at Jerusalem, was probably due to the absence of the 
Roman troops, who were quartered at Caesarea, out of the way 
of the fierce fanatics of the Temple. But Pilate transferred 
the winter-quarters of the army to Jerusalem, 37 and the very 
first day there was a collision. The offense was given by the 
Roman standards — the images of the emperor and of the 
eagle — which by former commanders had been kept out of the 
city. Pilate had been obliged to send them in by night, and 
there were no bounds to the rage of the people on discover- 
ing what had thus been done. They poured down in crowds 
to Ca3sarea, where the procurator was then residing, and be- 
sought him to remove the images. After five days of discus- 
sion, he gave the signal to some concealed soldiers to sur- 
round the petitioners and to put them to death unless they 
ceased to trouble him ; but this only strengthened their deter- 
mination, and they declared themselves ready rather to sub- 
mit to death than forego their resistance to an idolatrous in- 
novation. Pilate then yielded, and the standards were by his 
orders brought down to Cassarea. 38 Afterward, as if to try 
how far he might go, he consecrated some gilt shields — not 
containing figures, but inscribed simply with the name of the 
deity and of the donor — and hung them in the palace at Jeru- 
salem. This act again aroused the resistance of the Jews ; 
and on appeal to Tiberius they were removed. 39 Another 
riot was caused by his appropriation of the Corban — a sacred 
revenue arising from the redemption of vows 40 — to the cost 
of an aqueduct which he constructed for bringing water to 
the city. 41 To these specimens of his administration, which 
rest on the testimony of profane authors, we must add the 
slaughter of certain Galileans, already noticed in § 3. The 
clear testimony thus borne to his sanguinary tyranny sets in 
a striking light the meanness of his attempt to conciliate the 

know nothing ; but a German legend I tion of Jerusalem, and was after- 
fills up the gap strangely enough, j ward stationed at Mayence, may 
Pilate is the bastard son of Tyrus, j have been in this case either the 
king of Mayence. His father sends J bearers of the tradition or the invent- 
him to Rome as a hostage. There j ors of the fable, 
he is guilty of a murder ; but, being j 37 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 3, § 1 . 
sent to Pontus, rises into notice as j 3S Joseph. Ant. xviii. 3, § 1, 2; 
subduing the barbarous tribes there, B. J. ii. 9. 

receives in consequence the new j 30 Philo, npog Taiov, Mangey, ii 
name of Pontius, and is sent to Ju- j 589. 
daea. It has been suggested that the i 40 Comp. Mark vii. 11. 
twenty-second legion, which was in j 41 Joseph. B. J. ii. 9, § 4. 
Palestine at the time of the destruc- ' 



A.d. 40. Caligula and the Jews. 109 

Jews, and avoid the threat of a denunciation to Cassar, by the 
sacrifice of Jesus. Of the great events of our Lord's minis- 
try, under the government of Pilate, we shall speak in the 
next book, which will be the proper place to notice the mo- 
tives and conduct of Pilate in consenting to his death. Pilate's 
tyranny continued after that event, till, a.d. 37, the loud com- 
plaints of the Samaritans determined Vitellius, the prefect of 
Syria and father of the emperor, to send the procurator for 
trial to Rome. He arrived just after the death of Tiberius ; 
and one of the praiseworthy acts which marked the beginning 
of Caligula's reign was his banishment to Vienna ( Vienne) 
in Gaul, where a monument still bears the very doubtful title 
of the tomb of Pontius Pilate. 42 / 

After Pilate had been recalled to Rome, Jerusalem was 
visited by Vitellius, the prefect of Syria, at the time of 
the Passover. This visit was connected with the war, already 
noticed, between Herod Antipas and the Arabian king Are- 
tas. In consequence of the victory of the latter, Vitellius 
set his army in motion to attack Petra ; and it was on his 
march that he visited Jerusalem. Besides forbearing to in- 
sult the people by the display of his standards, Vitellius con- 
ferred two great benefits on the city. He remitted the duties 
levied on produce, and he allowed the Jews again to have the 
free custody of the high-priest's vestments. He removed 
Caiaphas from the high-priesthood, and gave it to Jonathan, 
son of Annas. He then departed, apparently leaving a Ro- 
man oificer 43 in charge of the Antonia. Vitellius was again 
at Jerusalem this year, probably in the autumn, with Herod 
the tetrarch ; 44 while there he again changed the high-priest, 
substituting for Jonathan, Theophilus his brother. The news 
of the death of Tiberius and the accession of Caligula reach- 
ed Jerusalem at this time ; and it was the interruption there- 
by caused to the operations of Vitellius that emboldened 
Aretas to seize Damascus, a circumstance of great impor- 
tance, as we shall see, in the chronology of Paul's life. 45 Mar- 
cellus was appointed procurator by the new emperor. 

§ 6. I n a.d. 4 Vitellius was superseded by P. Petro- 
tfius, who arrived in Palestine with an order to place in the 
Temple a statue of Caligula. This outrage was connected 
with events which throw an interesting light on the relations 
of the Jews, in their various branches, to the imperial su- 

42 Concerning the legend which | " Acts of Pilate," see the Diet, of 



connects his fate with Mons Pilatus, 
above the Lake of Lucerne, and the 
other legends of the apocryphal 



the Bible, s. v. 

(ppovpapxog, Ant. xviii. 4, § 3. 
Ant. xviii. 5, § 3. i5 See Book III 



110 



Judaea under the Bomaiis. 



Cha*. v. 



premacy. " Up to the reign of Caligula," 49 says Dean Mil- 
man, " the Jews had enjoyed, without any serious interrup- 
tion, the universal toleration which Roman policy permitted 
to the religion of the subject states. If the religion had suf- 
fered a temporary proscription at Rome under Tiberius, it 
was as a foreign superstition, supposed, from the misconduct 
of individuals, to be dangerous to the public morals in the 
metropolis. Judaism remained undisturbed in the rest of the 
empire ; and, although the occasional insolence of the Roman 
governors in Judaea might display itself in acts offensive to 
the religious feelings of the natives, yet the wiser and more 
liberal, like Vitellius, studiously avoided all interference with 
that superstition which they respected or despised. But the 
insane vanity of Caligula made him attempt to enforce from 
the whole empire those divine honors, which his predecessors 
consented to receive from the willing adulation of their sub 
jects. Everywhere statues were raised and temples built in 
honor of the deified emperor. The Jews could not submit to 
the mandate without violating the first principle of their re- 
ligion, nor resist it without exposing their whole nation to 
the resentment of their masters. The storm began to lower 
around them : its first violence broke upon the Jews in Alex- 
andria, where, however, the collision with the ruling authori- 
ties first originated in the animosities of the Greek and Jew- 
ish factions which divided the city. This great and populous 
capital, besides strangers from all quarters, was inhabited by 
three distinct races, the native Egyptians, Jews, and Greeks. 
The native Egyptians were generally avoided as of an inferior 
class ; but the Jews boasted of edicts from the founder of 
the city, and from other monarchs of Egypt, which entitled 
them to equal rank and estimation with descendants of the 
ancient Macedonian settlers. They were numerous : Philo 
calculates that in Egypt they amounted to a million of souls. 47 
They were opulent and among the most active traders of thaf 
great commercial metropolis. It is probable that they were 
turbulent, and not the peaceful and unoffending people dc- 



46 The proper name of this emperor 
—by which he is always called by 
the chief Roman historians, as well 
as in official documents — was Caius 
Caesar. Caligula (little boot) was a 
nickname due to the humorous fond- 
ness of the soldiers, with whom he 
lived as a child in the camp of his 
father Germanicus. But it seems not 



an inappropriate accident which has 
affixed a mere nickname, in the pago 
of history, to a mad prince of whom 
a Gaul said to his face — "I think 
you a great absurdity." 

47 This included the Jews in Alex- 
andria, and scattered settlers up to 
the borders of Ethiopia, 



A.D. 40. Caligula and the Jews. Ill 

scribed by their advocate Philo — at all events they were odi- 
ous to the Greek population." 

The prefect Valerius Flaccus, whose firm and impartial 
government had hitherto kept the peace between the contend- 
ing factions, finding his position endangered upon the acces- 
sion of Caligula, sought to ingratiate himself with the Alex- 
andrian Greeks by giving them license to insult the Jews, 
The arrival of Herod Agrippa, on his way to assume the 
principality conferred on him by Caligula, furnished a butt 
for their insolence ; and, having vented their wanton humor 
in a mockery of his royal state, they proceeded, on his depart- 
ure, to more serious outrages. They set up statues of the 
emperor in the proseuchm or Jewish places of worship ; and 
the Jews, compelled by an edict of Flaccus to keep themselves 
within the two quarters of the city which were peopled ex- 
clusively by them, though many resided in the other three, 
lost heavily by the compulsory removal, and began to suffer 
from pestilence and famine in the crowded quarters in which 
they were almost besieged. " Those who ventured out into 
the market were robbed, insulted, maltreated, pursued with 
sticks and stones. Bloodshed soon ensued ; many were slain 
with the sword, others trampled to death ; some, even while 
alive, were dragged by their heels through the streets. When 
dead, their bodies were still dragged along till they were torn 
to pieces, or so disfigured that they could not be distinguish- 
ed if at length recovered by their friends. Those who stray- 
ed out of the city to breathe the purer air of the country, or 
the strangers who incautiously entered the walls to visit and 
relieve their friends, were treated in the same way, and beaten 
with clubs till they were dead. The quays were watched, 
and, on the landing of a Jewish vessel, the merchandise was 
plundered, the owners and their vessel burned. Their houses 
were likewise set on fire, and whole families, men, women, 
and children, burned alive. Yet even this was a merciful 
death, compared with the sufferings of others. Sometimes, 
from want of wood, their persecutors could collect only a few 
wet sticks, and over these, stifled with smoke, and half-con- 
sumed, the miserable victims slowly expired. Sometimes 
they would mock their sufferings by affected sorrow ; but il 
any of their own relatives or friends betrayed the least emo- 
tion, they were seized, scourged, tortured, or even crucified." 

When these outrages had reached their height, Flaccus sum< 
moned before his tribunal, not the perpetrators, but the victims: 
and thirty-eight of the chiefs of the Alexandrian Sanhedrim were 
publicly scourged in the theatre, many dying under the blows 



112 Judcea under the Romans. Chap. v. 

The survivors were cast into prison ; and many other Jews 
were seized and crucified. " It was the morning spectacle of 
the theatre, to see the Jews scourged, tortured both with the 
rack and with pulleys, and then led away to execution ; and 
to this horrible tragedy immediately succeeded farces and 
dances, and other theatrical amusements." All this time 
Flaccus was keeping back a loyal address, which the Alexan- 
drian Jews had drawn up by the advice of Agrippa, who, dis 
covering the fraud, sent a copy to the emperor. A centurion 
was sent to arrest Flaccus. He was banished, and, after 
enduring much suffering and contempt in exile, was at length 
put to a cruel death. 

The preceding narrative, so strikingly illustrative of the 
condition of one branch of the Hebrew race, is furnished by 
Philo, the celebrated Alexandrian Jew, who brought the phil- 
osophic principles of Neo-Platonism to the defense of the an- 
cient faith. If he may be reasonably suspected of exagger- 
ating the sufferings and especially the submissive temper of 
his countrymen, there seems no reason for doubting his 
graphic account of the mission which he headed to Caligu- 
la, to whom the Greeks also sent a deputation headed by 
Apion, a name celebrated by Josephus's refutation of his 
book against the Jews. They arrived just at the time when 
Caligula, incensed at the destruction of an altar which one of 
the Roman publicani had erected to the emperor at Jamnia, 
had issued the edict for the. erection of his own colossal statue 
in the Holy of Holies, and the dedication of the Temple to him- 
self in the character of Jupiter ; and this blow at the chief sanctu- 
ary of their religion seemed fatal to their own cause. Neverthe- 
less Caius received them with a favor, in which it soon appeared 
that contempt was the chief element. The celebrated inter- 
view narrated by Philo exhibits probably the prevalent feel- 
ing of the Romans toward the Jews, though distorted into 
peculiar grotesqueness by the emperor's insane levity. It is 
thus related by the eloquent historian of the Jews : — " After a 
long and wearisome attendance, the deputies were summoned 
to a final audience. To judge so grave a cause, as Philo com- 
plains with great solemnity, the emperor did not appear in a 
public court, encircled by the wisest of his senators ; the em- 
bassy was received in the apartments of two contiguous vil- 
las in the neighborhood of Rome, called after Lamia and 
Maecenas. The bailiffs of these villas were commanded at 
the same time to have all the rooms thrown open for the em- 
peror's inspection. The Jews entered, made a profound obei- 
sances and saluted Caligula as Augustus and Emperor — but 



A.D. 40. Deputation to Caligula. 113 

the sarcastic smile on the face of Cains gave them little hopes 
of success. ' You are then' — he said, showing his teeth as he 
spoke — ' those enemies of the gods who alone refuse to ac- 
knowledge my divinity, but worship a deity whose "name you 
dare not pronounce' — -and here, to the horror of the Jews, he 
uttered the awful name. The Greek deputies from Alexan- 
dria, who were present, thought themselves certain of their 
triumph, and began to show their exultation by insulting gest 
ures ; and Isidore, one of the accusers of Flaccus, came for 
ward to aggravate the disobedience of the Jews. He accused 
them of being the only nation who had refused to sacrifice to 
the emperor. The Jews with one voice disclaimed the cal- 
umny, and asserted that they had three times offered sacrifice 
for the welfare of the emperor — : and indeed had been the first 
to do so on his accession. i Be it so,' rejoined the emperor — 
' ye have sacrificed for me, but not to me.' The Jews stood 
aghast and trembling. On a sudden Caius began to run all 
over the house, up stairs and down stairs ; inspecting the 
men's and women's apartments ; finding fault and giving or- 
ders, while the poor Jews followed him from room to room, 
amid the mockery of the attendants. After he had given his 
orders, the emperor suddenly turned round to them : ' Why 
is it that you do not eat pork ?' The whole court burst into 
peals of laughter. The Jews temperately replied, that differ- 
ent nations had different usages : some persons would not eat 
lamb. ' They are right,' said the emperor, ' it is an insipid 
meat.' After further trial of their patience, he demanded, 
with his usual abruptness, on what they grounded their rignt 
of citizenship. They began a long and grave legal argument ; 
but they had not proceeded far, when Caius began to run up 
and down the great hall, and to order that some blinds, of a 
kind of transparent stone, like glass, which admitted the light, 
and excluded the heat and air, should be put up against the 
windows. As he left that room, he asked the Jews, with a 
more courteous air, if they had any thing to say to him ; they 
began again their harangue, in the middle of which he 
started away into another chamber, to see some old paintings. 
The embassadors of the Jews at length were glad to retreat, 
and felt happy to escape with their lives. Caius gave them 
their dismissal in these words : — ' Well, after all, they do not 
seem so bad •, but rather a poor foolish people, who can not 
believe that I am a god.' " 

Whatever the Alexandrian Jews may have gained from the 
contemptuous forbearance and mad humor of the despot, 
there was no relenting of Ms purpose to desecrate the temple 



114 



Judaea under the Romans. 



Chap. V. 



at Jerusalem ; and he directed two legions to be withdrawn 
from the Euphrates, if necessary, to put down resistance. 
Petronius reluctantly ordered the statue to be made by 
Sidonian workmen, while he communicated his master's inten- 
tions to the Jews. The news had no sooner spread, than the 
people, without distinction of rank, age, or sex, flocked in 
thousands, though unarmed, to the winter-quarters of the 
governor at Ptolemais, to let him know that they dreaded the 
wrath of God more than that of the emperor. The like scene 
was repeated, when Petronius removed his head-quarters to 
Tiberias, to gain more certain information of the state of the 
country. When he replied to their supplications by asking 
them, " Are ye resolved, then, to wage war against your em- 
peror ?" they all fell on their faces to the earth, exclaiming, 
" We have no thought of war, but we will submit to be mas- 
sacred rather than infringe our Law." For forty days they 
remained as suppliants before the prefect, neglecting the 
season for sowing, till he became alarmed lest a famine should 
drive the peoj:>le to robbery. Petronius announced to an as- 
sembly convened at Tiberias his resolution to postpone the 
work till he had further orders from Rome. The influence 
of Agrippa with Caligula obtained the suspension of the de- 
cree ; and the tyrant was preparing to vent his mortification 
upon Petronius, when the dagger of Cassius Chserea delivered 
the empire from the daily dread of some new excess of mad- 
ness (a.d. 41). 48 

§ 7. When the body of Caligula was left by his assassins in 
the dark corridor between the palace and the amphitheatre, 
the only man who protected it from insult was the Jewish 
prince, whose name has been more than once mentioned. 
This was Herod Agrippa I., 49 the son of Aristobulus and 
Berenice, and grandson of Herod the Great. He was sent to 
Rome on his father's execution, and was brought up with 
Drusus the son of Tiberius. On the death of Drusus, he 
found himself excluded from the emperor's presence, and was 



48 Dean Mil man, whose admirable 
account of these events, based on 
Fhilo and Josephus, has been fol- 
lowed in the above narrative, adds 
'an interesting sketch of the sufferings 
to which, even beyond the confines of 
the Roman Empire, the Babylonian 
Jews were exposed from the usually 
tolerant Parthians, in consequence 
of the revolt of the brothers Asinai 
and Anilai. The insurgents, after 



considerable successes, were driven 
into Seleucia, where 50,000 Jews are 
said to have been massacred. Such 
details are of peculiar value, as show- 
ing the condition of the various 
branches of the Jewish nation in the 
age immediately succeeding their re- 
jection of the Messiah. 

49 The " king Herod " of Acts xii 
and the Agrippa I. of Josephus. 



A.D. 41. 



Herod Agrippa I. King of Judcea. 



115 



besides overwhelmed with debt. Returning to Palestine, he 
obtained through Ms sister Herodias the protection of Herod 
Antipas, who made him governor of Tiberias. But a quarrel 
soon took place, and, after strange vicissitudes and adventures, 
Agrippa obtained a loan from the Alabarch of Alexandria, 
which enabled him to return to Italy. He attached himself 
to the young Cains (Caligula), and having been overheard to 
express a hope for his friend's speedy succession, he was 
thrown into prison by Tiberius, where he remained till the ac- 
cession of Caligula, a.d. 37. The new emperor gave him the 
governments formerly held by the tetrarchs Philip and Ly- 
sanias, 50 and bestowed on him the ensigns of royalty and other 
marks of favor, and he arrived in Palestine in the following 
year, after visiting Alexandria. The jealousy of Herod Anti- 
pas and his wife Herodias was excited by these distinctions, 
and they sailed to Rome in the hope of supplanting Agrippa 
in the emperor's favor. As we have seen, Agrippa was aware 
of their design, and anticipated it by a counter-charge against 
Antipas of treasonable correspondence w T ith the Parthians. 
Antipas failed to answer the accusation, and was banished to 
Gaul (a.d. 39), and his dominions were added to those already 
held by Agrippa. 

During the brief wild reign of Caligula, Agrippa continued 
his faithful friend, and used his influence, as we have seen, on 
behalf of the Jews. Having paid the last honors to his 
patron's remains, he smoothed the path of his successor to 
the throne by his activity and discretion in carrying messages 
between the Senate and the praetorian camp. Claudius re- 
warded him with the kingdom of Judaea and Samaria, in ad- 
dition to his tetrarchy, and thus the dominions of Herod the 
Great w T ere reunited under his grandson (a.d. 41). We must 
doubtless ascribe to the emperor's philosophic spirit, as Avell as 
to his favor for Agrippa, his edict for the toleration of the 
Jewish religion, the reality of which was proved by the pun- 
ishment inflicted by Petronius on the inhabitants of Dora for 
insulting a Jewish synagogue. 

Agrippa arrived in Palestine to take possession of his king- 
dom, and one of his first acts was to visit the Temple, where 
he offered sacrifice, and dedicated the golden chain which the 
late emperor had presented him after his release from captiv- 
ity. It was hung over the Treasury. Simon was made high« 
priest; and the house-tax was remitted. Unlike the other 



50 Lysanias was a native prince, 
tetrarch of Abilene, the district round 
Abila, on the east slope of Antiliba- 



nus. See Diet, of Bible, art. Abi- 
lene and Lysanias, 



116 Judcea under the Romans. Chap. V, 

princes of his family, Agrippa was a strict observer of the 
Law, and he sought with success the favor of the Jews. He 
resided very much at Jerusalem, and added materially to its 
prosperity and convenience. 

The city had for some time been extending itself toward 
the north, and a large suburb had come into existence on the 
high ground north of the Temple, and outside the " second 
wall" which enclosed the northern part of the great central, 
valley of the city. Hitherto the outer portion of this suburb' 
— which was called Bezetha, or " New town," and had grown 
up very rapidly — was unprotected by any formal wall, and 
practically lay open to attack. 61 This defenseless condition 
attracted the attention of Agrippa, who, like the first Herod, 
was a great builder, and he commenced enclosing it in so sub- 
stantial and magnificent a manner as to excite the suspicions 
of the prefect of Syria, Vibius Marsus, at whose instance the 
work was stopped by Claudius. 63 Subsequently the Jews 
seem to have purchased permission to complete the work. 63 
This new wall, the outermost of the three which enclosed the 
city on the north, started from the old wall at the Tower Hip- 
picus, near the 1ST.W. corner of the city. It ran northward, 
bending by a large circuit to the east, and at last returning 
southward along the western brink of the valley of Kedron, 
till it joined the southern wall of the Temple. Thus it en- 
closed not only the new suburb, but also the district imme- 
diately north and north-east of the Temple on the brow of the 
Kedron valley, which up to the present date had lain open to 
the country. The huge stones which still lie — many of them 
undisturbed — in the east and south walls of the Haram area, 
especially the south-east corner under the " Bath and Cradle 
of Jesus," are parts of this wall. 

The year 44 began with the murder of St. James by Agrip- 
pa, 54 a deed expressly ascribed to his desire to please the 
Jews, followed at the Passover by the imprisonment and es- 
cape of St. Peter. The exercise of the power of life and 
death shows that, though Agrippa' s power was entirely de- 
pendent on the emperor's pleasure, it could scarcely be called 
nominal ; but Josephus expressly calls it an illegal assumption 
of a power that belonged only to the Roman procurator. It 

5: The statements of Josephus are ] ° 2 Ant. ibid. ; B. J. ii. 11, § 6, v. 
not quite reconcilable. In one pas- j 4, § 2. 

sage he says distinctly that Bezetha ° 3 Tacit. Hist. v. 12 ; Jos. B. J. v 
lay quite naked (B. J. v. 4, § 2), in ! 4, § 2, ad Jin. 
another that it had some kind of wall j 54 Acts xii. 1, 
(Ant. xix. 7, § 2J. ! 



A.D. 44. 



Topography of Jerusalem. 



117 



was, in fact, the systematic policy of Claudius to govern those 
parts of the East, which had not yet been fully incorporated 
into the Empire, through their own petty princes ; and thus 
he restored Antiochus to the kingdom of Commagene, and 




Plan of Jerusalem, 



118 



Judcea under the Romans. 



Chap. V. 



Mithridates to that of Pontus, as well as Agrippa to the 
throne of Herod. The dependent prince was probably acting 
in the spirit of the emperor, when he assembled five neighbor- 
ing kings at a magnificent entertainment at Tiberias; his 
brother Herod, king of Chalcis; Antiochus, king of Oom- 
magene; Cotys, king of the Lesser Armenia; Sampsigera- 
nus, 55 king of Emesa; and Polemon, king of Pontus: and, 
when Vibius Marsus, jealous of the meeting, ordered the kings 
back to their territories, Agrippa had the boldness to write to 
Claudius, soliciting the prefect's recall. 

Nature had secured for Agrippa the inheritance of at least 
one part of the greatness of Solomon. Now, as then, the mar- 
itime cities of Phoenicia depended for their corn upon the 
produce of the fertile plain districts of Palestine : — " Their 
country was nourished by the king's country." 56 The vast in- 
fluence which he thus exerted is proved by the humility with 
which the Tyrians and Sidonians dej^recated his resentment ; 
and the pomp amid which he received their envoys at 
Csesarea, indicating a desire to assume all the greatness of his 
grandfather, only made the likeness of their deaths the more 
conspicuous. 

In the fourth year of his reign over the whole of Judaea 
(a.d. 44) Agrippa celebrated some games at Csesarea in 
honor of the emperor. 57 When he appeared in the theatre on 
the second day in a royal robe made entirely of silver stuff, 
which shone in the morning light, his flatterers saluted him as 
a god ; and suddenly he was seized with terrible pains, and be- 
ing carried from the theatre to the palace, died after five days' 
agony a loathsome death, like those of the great persecutors, 
Antiochus Epiphanes, and his own grandfather. " After being 
racked for five days with intestine pains," " he was eaten of 
worms, and gave up the ghost." (a.d. 44.) 58 The miraculous 



65 This uncouth name, doubtless 
hereditary, is interesting as having 
furnished Cicero with a nickname 
for Pompey on his return from Syria. 

56 Acts xii. 20. 

67 Various conjectures "have been 
made as to the occasion of the festi- 
val. Josephus says that it was "in 
behalf of the emperor's safety," and 
it has been supposed that it might be 
in connection with his return from 
Britain ; but this is at least very 
uncertain. Josephus mentions also 
the concourse " of the chief men 



throughout the province" who were 
present on the occasion ; and though 
he does not notice the embassy of the 
Tyrians and Agrippa's speech, yet 
his narrative is perfectly consistent 
with both facts. 

58 Joseph. Ant. xix. 8 : t<f y/jtepag 
tt'svte r<f> rfjg yaarpoQ aXyrjfian 8u- 
pyaaOeig tov (3iov Karkarpi^ev. Acts 
xii. 23 : yiv6\iivog aKwXijKo^pojTog 
kZtyv&v ; cf. 2 Mace. ix. 5-9. 

By a singular and instructive con- 
fusion Eusebius (H. E. ii. 10 ; cf. 
Heinichen, Exc< 2, ad loc.) convert* 



A.D. 44. 



Agrippa II — Cuspius Fadus. 



119 



and judicial character of his death is distinctly affirmed by 
the sacred historian : — " Immediately the angel of the Lord 
smote him, because he gave not God the glory" The Greeks 
of Sebaste and Csesarea, with his own soldiers, showed brutal 
exultation at his death, and the censure which the riot 
brought down from Claudius upon the Roman soldiers em- 
bittered their feelings toward the Jews to such a degree, that 
Josephus regards this as one of the chief causes of the Jewish 
war. 

§ 8. Herod Agrippa II., 59 the son of Herod Agrippa I., 
was at Rome when his father died. He was only seventeen 
years old, and Claudius made his youth a reason for not giv- 
ing him his father's kingdom, as he had intended. 60 The em- 
peror afterward gave him the kingdom of Chalcis (a.d. 50), 
which was vacant by the death of his uncle Herod (a.d. 48) \ 
and this was soon exchanged for the tetrarchies of Itursea and 
Abilene, to which Nero added certain cities of the Decapolis 
about the Lake of Galilee (a.d. 52). But beyond the limits 
of his own dominions, Agrippa was permitted to exercise 
throughout Judaea that influence which even Paul recognized 
as welcome to a Jew, who saw in him the last scion of the 
Asmonsean house. In particular, he succeeded to those (as 
we should now say) ecclesiastical functions which the tolerant 
policy of Rome had permitted his uncle Herod to exercise — 
the government of the Temple and the nomination of the 
high-priest. He was, as we learn from the same authority, 
" expert in all customs and questions which are among the 
Jews ;" and so well able to understand the Jewish Scriptures, 
that the Apostle's reasonings from them called forth his 
memorable confession, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a 
Christian." 61 He gratified his hereditary taste for magnificence 
by adorning Jerusalem and Berytus with costly buildings ; 
but in such a manner as mortally to offend the Jews ; 62 and 
his relations to his sister Berenice (or Bernice), the widow of 
his uncle Herod, were of a very doubtful character. 63 But his 
one leading principle was to preserve fidelity to Rome. His 



the owl, which, according to Jose- 
phus, appeared to Herod as a messen- 
ger of evil (dyysXog kcckujv) into 
"the angel" of the Acts, who was 
the unseen minister of the Divine 
Will (Acts xii. 23, tTraraZev avrbv 
dyyeXoQ Kvpiov ; cf. 2 K. xix. 35, 
LXX.). 

59 Called Agrippa by Josephus, and 



"king Agrippa, " in Acts xxv., xxvi., 
as a title of honor. 

60 Joseph. Ant. xix. 9, §§ 1, 2. 

61 Acts xxvi. 3, 26-28. 

62 Joseph, xx. 7, § 8. 

63 Acts xxv. 23 ; Joseph. Ant. xx. 
6, § 3 ; Juvenal, Sat. vi. 156 seq. 
Scandal also connected the name of 
the princess with Titus, the " dclicha 
humani generis." 



120 Judcea under the Romans. Chap. v. 

sister, l)rusilla, was married to Felix, the procurator oi 
Judaea under Claudius and Nero ; and the narrative of St, 
Paul's trial shows Agrippa's intimacy with Festus, the sue 
cessor of Felix. In the last great rebellion of Judaea, he took 
part with Rome. With the destruction of Jerusalem (a.d. 
70), an end was put to this last Jewish principality. Retain- 
ing, however, his empty title as king, Agrippa survived the 
fate of his country in the enjoyment of splendid luxury, re- 
tired to Rome with Berenice, and died there in the third yeal 
of Trajan (a.d. 100). Of the other members of Herod's house, 
it is needless to say more than appears in the genealogical 
table. 

§ 9. Shortly after the death of Herod Agrippa I., Cuspius 
Eadjis arrived from Rome as procurator, under Longinus as 
prelect of Syria. An attempt was made by the Romans to 
regain possession of the pontificial robes ; but on reference to 
the emperor the attempt was abandoned. In a.d. 45 com- 
menced a severe famine, which lasted two years. To the 
people of Jerusalem it was alleviated by the presence of 
Helena, queen of Adiabene, a convert to the Jewish faith, 
who visited the city in 46 and imported corn and dried fruit, 
which she distributed to the poor. 04 During her stay Helena 
constructed, at a distance of three stadia from the city, a 
tomb marked by three pyramids, to which her remains, with 
those of her son, were afterward brought. It was situated 
to the north, and formed one of the points in the course of the 
new wall. This famine furnishes one of the chief data of the 
chronology of the Acts, in the journey of Paul and Barnabas, 
bringing the contributions for the poor Christians at Jerusa- 
lem, which had been collected at Antioch in consequence of 
the prediction of the famine by Agabus. 65 

Fadus was succeeded by Tiberius Alexander, an apostate 
Egyptian JeAv (a.d. 46), and he by Ventidius Cuma^rts 
(a.d. 48 or 50). A frightful tumult happened at the Passover 
of this year, caused, as on former occasions, by the presence 
of the Roman soldiers in the Antonia, and in the courts and 
cloisters of the Temple, during the festival. Ten, or, accord- 
ing to another account, twenty thousand are said to have met 
their deaths, not by the sword, but trodden to death in the 
crush through the narrow lanes which led from the Temple 
down into the city. 66 After other outrages, Cumanus was 
recalled to Rome, where Agrippa's influence procured Ms 

K Ant. xx. 2, § 5 ; 5, § 2. 65 Acts xi. 28-30. 

C0 Ant. xx. 5, §3; B. J. ii. 12, §1. 



A.D. 60. Ventidius Cwmanus — Porcins Festus. 121 

banishment (a.d. 53), and Felix was appointed in his room/ 1 
partly at the instance of Jonathan, the then high-priest." 
The hatred of Claudius to " foreign superstition " had mean- 
while been vented in an edict banishing the Jews from Rome 
(a.d. 52). Felix ruled the province in a mean, cruel, and/ 
profligate manner. 69 With the compendious description of' 
Tacitus the fuller details of Josephus agree, though his narra- 
tive is tinged with his hostility to the Jewish patriots ana 
zealots, whom, under the name of robbers, he describes Felix 
as extirpating and crucifying by hundreds. His period of 
office was full of troubles and seditions. We read of his 
putting down false Messiahs, the followers of an Egyptian 
magician, riots between the Jews and Syrians in CaBsarea, and 
between the priests and the principal citizens of Jerusalem. 
A set of ferocious fanatics, whom Josephus calls Sicarii 
(Assassins), had lately begun to make their appearance in the 
city, whose creed it was to rob and murder all whom they 
judged hostile to Jewish interests. Felix, weary of the re- 
monstrances of Jonathan on his vicious life, employed some 
of these wretches to assassinate him. The high-priest was 
killed in the Temple, while sacrificing. The murder was 
never inquired into, and emboldened by this, the Sicarii re- 
peated their horrid act ; thus adding, in the eyes of the Jews, 
the awful crime of sacrilege to that of murder. 70 The city, 
too, was filled with impostors pretending to inspiration, but 
inspired only with hatred to all government and order. Nor 
was the disorder confined to the lower classes : the chief 
people of the city, the very high-priests themselves, robbed the 
threshing-floors of the tithes common to all the priests, and 

67 Ant. xx. 7, § 1 ; B. J. ii. 12, § 8. i been judge of the nation " for many 

68 Ant. xx. 8, § 5. <£>r}\i%, Acts ' years." Those words, however, must 
xxiii., xxiv. ; in Tacitus, Hist. v. 9, ! not even thus be closely pressed ; for 
called Antonius Felix ; in Suidas, j Cumanus himself only went to Jndasa 
Claudius Felix, for he had been the \ in the eighth year of Claudius (Jos. 
emperor's freedman ; in Josephus and ■ Ant. xx. 5, § 2). Felix was the 
the Acts, simply Felix : so also in Tac- j brother of Claudius's powerful freed- 
itus {Ann, xii. 54). Tacitus states that man Pallas (B. J. ii. 12, § 8; Ant. 



Felix and Cumanus were joint procu 
rators, Cumanus having Galilee, and 
Felix Samaria. In this account Taci- 
tus is directly at issue with Josephus 
(Ant. xx. 6, § 2-7 ; § 1), and is gener- 
ally supposed to be in error ; but his 
account is very circumstantial, and by 
adopting it we should gain some little 
justification for the expression of St. I xii. 54.) 
Paul, Acts xxiv. 10, that Felix had i 70 B. J. ii. 13, § 3 ; Ant. ibid. 
F 



xx. 7, § 1); and it was to the cir- 
cumstance of Pallas's influence sur- 
viving his master's death (Tacit. Ann. 
xiv. 65) that Felix was retained in 
his procuratorship by Nero. 

69 u p er omnem ssevitiam et libidi- 
nem jus rcgium servili ingenio ex- 
ercuit" (Tacit. Hist. v. 9, and Ann,, 



122 



Judaea under the Romans. 



Chap. V. 



led parties of rioters to open tumult and fighting in the 
streets. 71 In fact, not only Jerusalem, but the whole country 
far and wide, was in the most frightful confusion and insecurity, 
and, though want of vigor was not among the faults of Felix, 
his severe measures and cruel retributions seemed only to 
accelerate the already rapid course of the Jews to ruin. 72 His 
detention of St. Paul in prison, in the hope of extorting money, 
adds to the traits of tyranny the baseness of the freedman. 
Tacitus says, in one word, " By every form of cruelty and 
lust, he wielded the power of a king in the spirit of a slave.'"' 
Such were the crimes that weighed on the conscience of the 
Apostle's judge — dreading the vengeance of his earthly mas- 
ter, while he had learned something of higher principles from 
his Jewish wife, Drusilla. No wonder that, as Paul " reasoned 
of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Pelix 
trembled." 73 His crowning outrage was a massacre of the Jews 
at Caesarea, on the occasion of one of their frequent conflicts 
with the Greeks. For this he was accused before Nero, after 
his recall (a.d. 60) ; but the party of his brother Pallas had 
still influence enough to save him from punishment ; while the 
Greeks of Caesarea obtained an imperial decree depriving the 
Jewish citizens of their rights. These affairs of Caesarea 
hastened the coming contest: the Greeks became more and 
more insulting ; the Jews more and more turbulent. 

In the end of a.d. 60 or the beginning of a.d. 61, Pokcius 
Festus succeeded Felix as procurator. Festus was an able 
and upright officer, 74 and at the same time conciliatory toward 
the Jews, as he proved in his judgment on St. Paul, whose 
trial took place, not at Jerusalem, but at Caesarea. 75 In the 
brief period of his administration, he kept down the robbers 
with a strong hand, and gave the province a short breathing 
time. On one occasion both Festus and Agrippa came into 
collision with the Jews at Jerusalem. Agrippa had added an 
apartment to the old Asmonaean palace on the eastern brow 
of the Upper City, which commanded a full view into the in- 
terior of the courts of the Temple. This view the Jews inter- 
cepted by building a wall on the west side of the inner quad- 
rangle. 78 But the wall not only intercepted Agrippa's view 3 



" : Ant. xx. 8, § 8. 
7:5 Tac. Ann. xii. 54: "intempest- 
ivis remediis delicta accendebat." 

73 Acts xxiv. 25. 

74 B. J. ii. 14, § 1. 

75 Acts xxv., xxvi. 

70 No one in Jerusalem might build 



so high that his house could overlook 
the Temple. It was the subject of a 
distinct prohibition by the Doctors. 
See Maimonides, quoted by Otho, 
Lex. Rob. 266. Probably this fur- 
nished one reason for so hostile a step 
to so friendly a person as Agrippa. 



A.D. 62. Albinus — Gessius Floras . 123 

it also interfered with that from the outer cloisters, in which 
the Roman guard was stationed during the festivals. Both 
Agrippa and Festus interfered, and required it to be pulled 
down ; but the Jews pleaded that, once built, it was a part of 
the Temple, and entreated to be allowed to appeal to Nero. 
Nero allowed their "plea, but retained as hostages the high- 
priest and treasurer, who had headed the deputation. Agrip- 
pa appointed Joseph, called Cabi, to the vacant priesthood, in 
which he was shortly after succeeded by AjgfAS or Axaxus, 
the fifth son of the Annas before whom ourXord was taken. 

In 62 (probably) Festus died, and was succeeded after a 
time by Albixus. In the interval a persecution was com- 
menced against the Christians at the instance of the new high- 
priest, a rigid Sadducee, and St. James and others were ar- 
raigned before the Sanhedrim. 77 They were " delivered to bo 
stoned," but St. James at any rate appears not to have been 
killed till a few years later. The act gave great offense to all, 
and cost Annas his office, after he had held it but three 
months. Jesus (Joshua), the son of Damneus, succeeded him. 
Albinus began his rule by endeavoring to keep down the 
Sicarii and other disturbers of the peace ; and indeed he pre- 
served throughout a show of justice and vigor, 78 though in 
secret greedy and rapacious. But before his recall he pursued 
his end. more openly, and priests, people, and governors alike 
seem to have been bent on rapine and bloodshed : rival high- 
priests headed bodies of rioters, and stoned each other, and 
in the words of Josephus, " all things grew from worse to 
worse." 79 The evils were aggravated by two occurrences — first, 
the release by Albinus, before his departure, of all the smaller 
criminals in the prisons ; and secondly, the sudden discharge 
of an immense body of workmen, on the completion of the re- 
pairs of the Temple. An endeavor was made to remedy the 
latter by inducing Agrippa to rebuild the eastern cloister ; 
but he refused to undertake a work of such magnitude, though 
he consented to pave the city with marble. The repairs of a 
part of the sanctuary that had fallen down, and the renewal of 
the foundations of some portions, were deferred for the pres- 
ent, but the materials were collected and stored in one of the 
courts. 80 

§ 10. Bad as Albinus had been, Gessius Florus, who suc- 
ceeded him in 65, was worse. In fact, even Tacitus admits 
that the endurance of the oppressed Jews could last no 

77 Jos. Ant. xx. 9, § 1. ( 79 Ant. xx. 9, § 4. 

78 Ant. xx. 11, § 1. so B.J. v. 1, § 5. 



124. Judcea under the Romans. Chai>. V, 

longer. 01 So great was his rapacity, that whole cities and 
districts were desolated, and the robbers were openly allowed 
to purchase immunity in plundering. At the Passover, proba- 
bly in 66, when Cestius Gallus, the prefect of Syria, visited 
Jerusalem, the whole assembled people 82 besought him for re- 
dress ; but without effect. Florus's next attempt was to ob- 
tain some of the treasure from the Temple. He demanded 
seventeen talents in the name of the emperor. The demand 
produced a frantic disturbance, in the midst of which he ap- 
proached the city with both cavalry and foot-soldiers. That 
night Floras took up his quarters in the royal palace — that of 
Herod at the N.W. corner of the city. On the following morn- 
ing he took his seat on the Bema, and the high-priest and 
other principal people being brought before him, he demanded 
that the leaders of the late riot should be given up. On their 
refusal, he ordered his soldiers to plunder the Upper City. 
This order was but too faithfully carried out; every house 
was entered and pillaged, and the Jews driven out. In their 
attempt to get through the narrow streets, which lay in the 
valley between the "Upper City and the Temple, many were 
caught and slain, others were brought before Floras, scourged, 
and then crucified. No grade or class was exempt. Jews 
who bore the Roman equestrian order were among the victims 
treated with most indignity. Queen Bernice herself — resid- 
ing at that time in the Asmonsean palace in the very midst of 
the slaughter — was so affected by the scene, as to intercede in 
person and barefoot before Floras, but without avail ; and in 
returning she was herself nearly killed, and only escaped by 
taking refuge in her palace and calling her guards about her. 
The further details of this dreadful tumult must be passed 
over. 83 Floras was foiled in his attempt to press through the 
old city up into the Antonia — whence he would have had near- 
er access to the treasures — and finding that the Jews had 
broken down the north and west cloisters where they joined 
the fortress, so as to cut off the communication, he relinquish- 
ed the attempt and withdrew to Csesarea. 84 — i-* 

Cestius Gallus, the prefect of Syria, now found it necessa- 
ry for him to visit the city in person. He sent one of his lieu- 
tenants to announce him, but before he himself arrived events 
Vad become past remedy. Agrippa had shortly before return- 



81 Duravit patientia Judceis usque ad 
Gessium Florum {Hist. v. 10). 

82 Joseph us says three millions in 
number ! Three millions is very lit- 



u B. J. ii. 15, § 6. 



tie under the population of London 
with all its suburbs. 

83 The whole tragic story is most 
forcibly told by Milman (ii. 219-224) 



A.D. 66. Outbreak of the Jewish War. 125 

ed from Alexandria, and had done much to calm the people. 
At his instance they rebuilt the part of the cloister which had 
been demolished, and collected the tribute in arrear, but the 
mere suggestion from him, that they should obey Florus until 
he was replaced, produced such a storm that he was obliged 
to leave the city. The seditious party in the Temple, led by 
young Eleazar, son of Ananias, rejected the offerings of the 
Roman emperor, which had been regularly made since the 
time of Julius Caesar. This, as a direct renunciation of ah 
leg lance, was the true beginning of the war with Home. 85 
Such acts were not done without resistance from the older and 
wiser people. But remonstrance was unavailing, the innova- 
tors would listen to no representations. The peace party, 
therefore, dispatched some of their number to Florus and to 
Agrippa, and the latter sent 3000 horse-soldiers to assist in 
keeping order. 

Hostilities at once began. The peace party, headed by the 
high-priest, and fortified by Agrippa's soldiers, threw them- 
selves into the Upper City. The insurgents held the Temple 
and the Lower City. In 'the Antonia was a small Roman 
garrison. Fierce contests lasted for seven days, each side en- 
deavoring to take possession of the part held by the other. 
At last the insurgents, who behaved with the greatest feroci- 
ty, and were reinforced by a number of Sicarii, were triumph 
ant. They gained the Upper City, driving all before them— 
the high-priest and other leaders into vaults and sewers, the 
soldiers into Herod's palace. The Asmonrean palace, the high- 
priest's house, and the repository of the archives — in Josephus's 
language, " the nerves of the city " — were set on fire. Anto- 
nia was next attacked, and in two days they had effected an 
entrance, sabred the garrison, and burned the fortress. The 
balistae and catapults found there were preserved for future 
use. The soldiers in Herod's palace were next besieged ; but 
so strong were the walls, and so stout the resistance, that it was 
three weeks before an entrance could be effected. The soldiers 
were at last forced from the palace into the three great towers 
on the adjoining wall with great loss ; and ultimately were all 
murdered in the most treacherous manner. The high-priest 
and his brother were discovered hidden in the aqueduct of the 
palace : they were instantly put to death. Thus the insurgents 
were now completely masters of both city and Temple. But 
they were not to remain so long. After the defeat of Cestius 
Gallus at Beth-horon, dissensions began to arise, and it soon 

36 Joseph. B. J. ii. 17, § 2. 



126 Judcea under the Romans. Chap. v. 

became known that there was still a large moderate party; 
and Cestius took advantage of this to advance from Scopus 
on the city. He made his way through Bezetha, the new sub- 
urb north of the Temple, 86 and through the wood-market, 
burning every thing as he went, 87 and at last encamped oppo- 
site the palace at the foot of the second wall. The Jews re- 
tired to the "Upper City and to the Temple. For five days 
Cestius assaulted the wall without success; on the sixth he 
resolved to make one more attempt, this time at a different 
spot — the north wall of the Temple, east of, and behind, the 
Antonia. The Jews, however, fought with such fury from the 
top of the cloisters, that he could effect nothing, and when 
night came he drew off to his camp at Scopus. Thither the 
insurgents followed him, and in three days gave him one of 
the most complete defeats that a Roman army had ever un- 
dergone. His catapults and balistse were taken from him, and 
reserved by the Jews for the final siege. This occurred on 
the 8th of Marchesvan (beginning of November), a.d. 66. 

The war with Rome was now inevitable, and Nero, who re- 
ceived the news in Greece, committed its conduct to his ablest 
general, T. Flavius Vespasianus (afterward the emperor), 
who sent his son Titus before him. It was evident that the 
siege of Jerusalem was only a question of time. Ananus, 
the high-priest, a moderate and prudent man, took the lead ; 
the walls were repaired, arms and warlike instruments and 
machines of all kinds fabricated, and other preparations made. 
In this attitude of expectation — with occasional diversions, 
such as the expedition to Ascalon, and the skirmishes with 
Simon Bar-Gioras — the city remained, while Vespasian was 
reducing the north of the country, and till the fall of Giscala 
(Oct. or Nov. 67), when John, the son of Levi, escaped thence 
to Jerusalem, to become one of the most prominent persons 
in the future conflict. Nor must we omit to mention here 
John's great rival, Joseph, the son of Matthias, who is best 
known by his adopted Roman name of Flavius Josephus, 
the historian of the Jews and of this war. A priest of the 
most illustrious descent, distinguished alike for his ascetic 
piety and his Hebrew and Greek learning, he was appointed 
by the moderate party to defend Galilee and keep down the 
zealots. His energy in the latter task made him a mortal 
enemy to John of Giscala, while his brilliant, though vain, de- 



88 It is remarkable that nothing is | through the great wall of Agrippa 
said of any resistance to his passage | whjeh encircled Bezetha. 
87 B. J. v. 7, § 2. 



a_„d. GG. Vespasian and Josephus. 127 

fense of Jotapata, before which Vespasian himself was wound- 
ed, earned him the respect of the Roman chief, who attached 
him to his person during the war, used his services as a medi- 
ator, though to no purpose, and at last rewarded him with a 
grant of land in Judaea, a pension, and the Roman franchise. 
For the details of the war Josephus is our only authority, 
most unfortunately; for, besides the natural bias toward 
pleasing his imperial patrons, his sense of the hopelessness of 
the Jewish cause overcame all patriotic sympathy with resist- 
ance to intolerable oppression, and personal animosity leads 
him to paint the zealots in the blackest colors. Nor is it 
quite needless to warn the Christian reader against judging 
the merits of the Jewish cause by the higher ends which their 
doom was destined to fulfill. 

From the arrival of John, two years and a half elapsed till 
Titus appeared before the walls of Jerusalem, which now 
stood alone, like a rock, out of the flood of conquest that had 
overwhelmed all the country. While Vespasian reduced Gal- 
ilee — the Samaritans, who, making common cause with the 
Jews in their extremity, had gathered their w T hole force on 
Mount Gerizim, and, being compelled by thirst to surrender 
to Petilius Cerealis, were treacherously massacred — Trajan, 
the father of the emperor, took Jamnia, the frontier fortress 
of Judaea, and Joppa, its only port (a.d. 6V). In the second 
campaign the Romans swept Persea, as with the besom of 
destruction, and multitudes of the flying inhabitants were 
slaughtered and drowned at the fords of Jericho. Vespasian 
had reunited his forces at that city, and was preparing to ad- 
vance upon Jerusalem, when the news of Nero's death sus- 
pended his operations, upon what seemed to him a higher is- 
sue than the fate of the Holy City (a.d. 68). At Alexandria, 
whither he had retired with Titus to await the event of the 
civil war in Italy, he was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers 
on the 1st of July, a.d. 69, and his generals at Rome secured 
his accession by the overthrow and death of Vitellius on the 
21st of December. Vespasian did not sail from Alexandria 
till the following May, leaving Titus to finish the Jewish war, 
which had been suspended for nearly two years. The whole 
of that time was occupied in contests between the moderate 
party, whose desire was to take such a course as might yet 
preserve the nationality of the Jews and the existence of the 
city, and the Zealots or fanatics, the assertors of national in- 
dependence, who scouted the idea of compromise, and resolved 
to regain their freedom or perish. The Zealots, being utterly 
unscrupulous, and resorting to massacre on the least resist 



128 



Judaea under the Romans, 



Chap. V. 



ance, soon triumphed, and at last reigned paramount, with no 
resistance but such as sprang from their own internal factions. 
For the repulsive details of this frightful period of contention 
and outrage the reader must be referred to other works. 88 It 
will be sufficient to say that at the beginning of a.d. 70, when 
Titus made his appearance, the Zealots themselves were 
divided into two parties : that of John of Giscala and Eleazar, 
who held the Temple and its courts and the Antonia — 8400 
men ; that of Simon Bar-Gioras, whose head-quarters were in 
the tower Phasaelus, and who held the Upper City, from the 
present Coenaculum to the Latin Convent, the Lower City in 
the valley, and the district where the old Acra had formerly 
stood, north of the Temple — 10,000 men, and 5000 Idumseans, 
in all a force of between 23,000 and 24,000 soldiers, trained 
in the civil encounters of the last two years to great skill and 
thorough recklessness. 80 The numbers of the other inhabit- 
ants, swelled as they were by the strangers and pilgrims who 
flocked from the country to the Passover, it is extremely dif- 
ficult to determine. Tacitus, doubtless from some Roman 
source, gives the whole at 600,000. Josephus states that 
1,100,000 perished during the siege, 90 and that more than 
40,000 were allowed to depart into the country, 91 in addition 
to an " immense number " sold to the army, and who of course 
form a proportion of the 97,000 "carried captive during the 
whole war." 92 We may therefore take Josephus's computa- 
tion of the numbers at about 1,200,000. Even the smaller of 
these numbers seems very greatly in excess, and it can hardly 
have exceeded 60,000 or 70,000. 

This state of the doomed city, — overcrowded with Jews, 
whose native passions and fervor, exasperated by the late war 
and exalted by the season of the Passover, doomed to be their 
last, were stimulated by the Zealots and inflamed by factions, 
— might well prepare those who knew the people for horrid 
deeds and more horrid sufferings. Pent up like sheep for the 
slaughter, they equally resembled wolves devouring one 
another. But the scene had a far more awful aspect, viewed 
oi the light of ancient prophecy, as well as of Christ's recent 



BS Dean Milman's History of the 
Jews, Books xiv., xv., xvL; and Mer- 
ivale's History of the Romans, vi. ch. 
59. Of course the materials for all 
modern accounts are in Josephus 
only, excepting the few touches — 
strong, but not always accurate — in 
the 5th book of Tacitus's Histories. 



S9 These are the numbers given by 
Josephus ; but it is probable that they 
are exaggerated. 

90 B. J. vi. 9, § 3 : comp. v. 13, 
7. 

01 B. J. vi. 8, § 2. 

92 B. J. vi. 9, § 3. 



A.D. 70. Siege of Jerusalem. 129 

denunciations of woe. As they who rejected him did but 
" fill up the measure of their fathers," so the warnings uttered 
to those fathers by Moses, by Solomon, and by the prophets, 
were but made more pointed and more instant in our Lord's 
discourse at his last departure from the Temple. 93 But the 
special significance of the destruction of Jerusalem, as the ful- 
fillment of the last great prophecy uttered under the Old Cov- 
enant, as the proof of His authority who gave it, and as " the 
removal of those things that are shaken that those things 
which can not be shaken might remain," will be best consid- 
ered in their place as the climax of the first stage in the his- 
tory of the Christian Church. It need only be added here, 
that the Christians in Jerusalem were saved by their Lord's 
warning from the judicial blindness of their fellow-country- 
men. Taking advantage of the space before the siege was 
formed by Titus they departed in a body to Pella , a village 
of the Decapolis, beyond Jordan, which became the seat of 
the "Church of Jerusalem" till Hadrian permitted- their re- 
turn. 

§ 11. Titus's force consisted of four legions, and some aux- 
iliaries — at the outside 30,000 men. These were disposed on 
their first arrival in three camps — the 12th and 15th legions 
on the ridge of Scopus, about a mile north of the city; the 
5th a little in the rear ; and the 10th on the top of the Mount 
of Olives, to guard the road to the Jordan valley, and to shell 
the place (if the expression may be allowed) from that com- 
manding position. The army was well furnished with artil- 
lery and machines of the latest and most approved invention. 94 
The first operation was to clear the ground between Scopus 
and the north wall of the city — fell the timber, destroy the 
fences of the gardens which fringed the wall, and level the 
rocky protuberances. This occupied four days. After it was 
done, the three legions were marched forward from Scopus, 
and encamped off the north-west corner of the walls, stretch- 
ing from the Tower Psephinus to opposite Hippicus. The 
first step was to get possession of the outer wall. The point 
of attack chosen was in Simon's portion of the city, at a low 
and comparatively weak place near the monument of John 
Hyrcanus, close to the junction of the three walls, and where 
the Upj)er City came to a level with the surrounding ground. 
Round this spot the three legions erected banks, from which 
they opened batteries, j)ushing up the rams and other engines 
of attack to the foot of the wall. One of the rams, more pow- 

83 Matt. xxiv. w Tacitus, Hist.v. 13. See the plan of Jerusalem oi? p. 117 
F 2 



130 Judcea under the Romans. Chap. V. 

erful than the rest, went among the Jews by the sobriquet of 
JVikon, the conqueror. Three large towers, 75 feet high, 
were also erected, overtopping the wall. Meantime from their 
camp on the Mount of Olives the 10th legion opened fire on 
the Temple and the east side of the city. They had the 
heaviest balistse, and did great damage. Simon and his men 
did not suffer these works to go on without molestation. 
The catapults, both those taken from Cestius, and those found 
in Antonia, were set up on the wall, and constant desperate 
sallies were made. At last the Jews began to tire of* their 
fruitless assaults. They saw that the wall must fall, and, as 
they had done during Nebuchadnezzar's siege, they left their 
posts at night, and went home. A breach was made by the 
redoubtable Mkon on the 1th Artemisius (about April 15); 
and here the Romans entered, driving the Jews before them 
to the second wall. A great length of the wall was then 
broken down ; such parts of Bezetha as had escaped destruc- 
tion by Cestius were leveled, and a new camp was formed on 
the spot formerly occupied by the Assyrians, and still known 
as the " Assyrian camp." 

This was a great step in advance. Titus now lay with the 
second wall of the city close to him on his right, while before 
him at no considerable distance rose Antonia and the Temple, 
with no obstacle in the interval to his attack. Still, however, 
he preferred, before advancing, to get possession of the sec- 
ond wall, and the neighborhood of John's monument was 
again chosen. Simon was no less reckless in assault, and no 
less fertile in stratagem, than before ; but, notwithstanding all 
his efforts, in five days a breach was again effected. The dis- 
trict into which the Romans had now penetrated was the 
great Valley which lay between the two main hills of the city, 
occupied then, as it is still, by an intricate mass of narrow and 
tortuous lanes, and containing the markets of the city — no 
doubt very like the present bazaars. Titus's breach was 
where the wool, cloth, and brass bazaars came up to the wall. 
This district was held by the Jews with the greatest tenacity. 
Knowing as they did every turn of the lanes and alleys, they 
had an immense advantage over the Romans, and it was only 
after four days' incessant fighting, much loss, and one thorough 
repulse, that the Romans were able to make good their posi- 
tion. However, at last, Simon was obliged to retreat, and 
then Titus demolished the wall. This was the second step in 
the siege. 

Meantime some shots nad been interchanged in the direc- 
tion of the Antonia^ but no serious attack was made. Before 



^D. 70. Siege of Jerusalem. 13 1 

beginning there in earnest, Titus resolved to give his troops a 
few days' rest, and the Jews a short opportunity for reflection. 
He therefore called in the 10th legion from the Mount of 
Olives, and held an inspection of the whole army on the 
ground north of the Temple — full in view of both the Temple 
and the Upper City, every wall and house in which were 
crowded with spectators. But the opportunity was thrown 
away upon the Jews, and after four days orders were given 
to recommence the attack. Hitherto the assault had been 
almost entirely on the city: it was now to be simultaneous 
on city and Temple. Accordingly two pairs of large batteries 
were constructed, the one pair in front of Antonia ; the other 
at the old point of attack — the monument of John Hyrcanus. 
The first pair was erected by the 5th and 12th legions, and 
was near the pool Struthius — probably the present Birket 
Israil, by the St. Stephen's gate; the second by the 10th and 
15th, at the pool called the Almond pool — possibly that now 
known as the pool of Hezekiah — and near the high-priest's 
monument. These banks seem to have been constructed of 
timber and fascines, to which the Romans must have been 
driven by the scarcity of earth. They absorbed the incessant 
labor of seventeen days, and were completed on the 29th 
Artemisius (about May 7). John in the mean time had not 
been idle; he had employed the seventeen days' respite in 
driving mines, through the solid limestone of the hill, from 
within the fortress to below the banks. The mines were 
formed with timber roofs and supports. When the banks 
were quite complete, and the engines placed upon them, the 
timber of the galleries was fired, the superincumbent ground 
gave way, and the labor of the Romans was totally destroyed. 
At the other point Simon had maintained a resistance with all 
his former intrepidity, and more than his former success. He 
had now greatly increased the number of his machines, and 
his people were much more expert in handling them than be- 
fore, so that he was able to impede materially the progress of 
the works. And when they were completed, and the batter- 
ing ranis had begun to make a sensible impression on the 
wall, he made a furious assault on them, and succeeded in 
firing the rams, seriously damaging the other engines, and 
destroying the banks. 

It now became plain to Titus that some other measures for 
the reduction of the place must be adopted. It would appear 
that hitherto the southern and western parts of the city had 
not been invested, and on that side a certain amount of com- 
munication was kept up with the country, which, unless 



132 



Judcea under the Romans. 



Chap.V. 



stopped, might prolong the siege indefinitely. The numbe? 
who thus escaped is stated by Josephus at more than 500 a 
day. A council of war was therefore held, and it was resolved 
to encompass the whole place with a wall, and then recom- 
mence the assault. The wall began at the Roman camp — a 
spot probably outside the modern north wall, between the 
Damascus gate and the N.E. corner ; from thence it went to 
the lower part of Bezetha — about St. Stephen's gate; then 
across Kedron to the Mount of Olives; thence south, by a 
rock called the "Pigeon's rock," — possibly the modern 
" Tombs of the Prophets " — to the Mount of Offense. It then 
turned to the west ; again dipped into the Kedron, ascended 
the Mount of Evil Counsel, and so kept on the upper side oi 
the ravine to a village called Beth-Erebenthi, whence it ran 
outside of Herod's monument to its starting-point at the 
camp. Its entire length was 39 furlongs — very near 5 miles ; 
and it contained 13 stations or guard-houses. The whole 
strength of the army was employed on the work, and it was 
completed in the short space of three days. The siege was 
then vigorously pressed. The north attack was relinquished, 
and the whole force concentrated on the Antonia. Four new 
banks of greater size than before were constructed, and as all 
the timber in the neighborhood had been already cut down, 
the materials had to bo procured from a distance of eleven 
miles. Twenty-one days were occupied in completing the 
banks. At length on the 1st Panemus or Tamuz (about June 
7). the fire from the banks commenced, under cover of which 
the rams were set to work, and that night a part of the wall 
fell at a spot where the foundations had been weakened by the 
mines employed against the former attacks. Still this was 
but an outwork, and between it and the fortress itself a new 
wall was discovered, which John had taken the precaution to 
build. At length, after two desperate attempts, this wall and 
that of the inner fortress were scaled by a bold surprise, and 
on the 5th Panemus (June ll) 95 the Antonia was in the hands 
of the Romans. Another week was occupied in breaking 
down the outer walls of the fortress for the passage of the 
machines, and a further delay took place in erecting new 
banks, on the fresh level, for the bombardment and battery of 



^Josephus contradicts himself 
about this date, since in vi. 2, § 1, 
he says that the 17th Panemns was 
the "very day" that Antonia was 
entered. The date given in the text 
agrees best with the narrative. But 



on the other hand the 17th is tho 
day commemorated in the Jewish cal- 
endar. It should be observed that 
the Macedonian names of months 
ore supposed to be used by Josephus 
for the corresponding Jewish months 



A.D. 70. Burning of the Temple. 133 

the Temple. During the whole of this time — the miseries of 
which are commemorated in the traditional name of yomin 
deeka, " days of wretchedness," applied by the Jews to the 
period between the 17th Tainuz and the 9th Ab — the most 
desperate hand-to-hand encounters took place, some in the pas- 
sages from the Antonia to the cloisters, some in the cloisters 
themselves, the Romans endeavoring to force their way in, 
the Jews preventing them. But the Romans gradually gained 
•ground. First the western, and then the whole of the north- 
ern external cloister was burned (27th and 28thPanemus), and 
then the wall enclosing the court of Israel and the holy house 
itself. In the interval, on the 1 7th Panemus, the daily sacri- 
fice had failed, owing to the want of officiating priests ; a cir- 
cumstance which had greatly distressed the people, and was 
taken advantage of by Titus to make a further though fruit- 
less invitation to surrender. At length, on the 10th day of 
Lous or Ab (July 15), — the 9th, according to the Jewish 
tradition — by the wanton act of a soldier, contrary to the 
intention of Titus and in spite of every exertion he could make 
to stop it, the sanctuary itself was fired. It was, by one of 
those rare coincidences that sometimes occur, the very same 
month and day of the month that the first temple had been 
burned by Nebuchadnezzar. John, and such of his party as 
escaped the flames and the carnage, made their way by the 
bridge on the south to the Upper City. The whole of the 
cloisters that had hitherto escaped, including the magnificent 
triple colonnade of Herod on the south of the Temple, the 
treasury chambers, and the rooms round the outer courts, were 
now all burned and demolished. Only the edifice of the 
sanctuary itself still remained. On its solid masonry the fire 
had had comparatively little effect, and there were still hidden 
in its recesses a few faithful priests who had contrived to 
rescue the most valuable of the utensils, vessels, and spices of 
the sanctuary. 

The Temple was at last gained ; but it seemed as if half the 
work remained to be done. The Upper City, higher than 
Moriah, enclosed by the original wall of David and Solomon, 
and on all sides precipitous except at the north, where it was 
defended by the wall and towers of Herod, was still to be 
taken. Titus tried a parley first through Josephus, and then 
in person, he standing on the east end of the bridge between 
the Temple and the Upper City, and John and Simon on the 
west end. His terms, however, were rejected, and no alterna- 
tive was left him but to force on the siege. The whole of the 
low part of the town — the crowded lanes, of which we have 



134 Judoea under the Romans. Chap. V 

so often heard — was burned, in the teeth of a frantic resistance 
from the Zealots, together with the council-house, the repos- 
itory of the records (doubtless occupied by Simon since its 
former destruction), and the palace of Helena, which were 
situated in this quarter — the suburb of Ophel under the south 
wall of the Temple, and the houses as far as Siloam on the 
lower slopes of the Temple mount. 

It took 1 8 days to erect the necessary works for the siege ; 
the four legions were once more stationed at the west or north- 
west corner, where Herod's palace abutted on the wall, and 
where the three magnificent and impregnable towers of Hip- 
picus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne rose conspicuous. This was 
the main attack. Opposite the Temple, the precipitous nature 
of the slopes of the tipper City rendered it unlikely that any 
serious attempt would be made by the Jews, and this part 
accordingly, between the bridge and the Xystus, was left to 
the auxiliaries. The attack was commenced on the 7th of 
Gorpiaeus (about Sept. 11), and by the next day a breach was 
made in the wall, and the Romans at last entered the city. 
During the attack John and Simon appear to have stationed 
themselves in the towers just alluded to; and had they re- 
mained there, they would probably have been able to make 
terms, as the towers were considered impregnable. But on 
the first signs of the breach, they took flight, and, traversing 
the city, descended into the valley of Hinnoni below Siloam, 
and endeavored to force the wall of circumvallation and so 
make their escape. On being repulsed there, they took refuge 
apart in some of the subterraneous caverns or sewers of the 
city. John shortly after surrendered himself ; but Simon held 
out for several weeks, and did not make his appearance until 
after Titus had quitted the city. They were both reserved 
for the triumph at Rome. 

The city being taken, such parts as had escaped the former 
conflagrations were burned, and the whole of both city and 
Temple was ordered to be demolished, excepting the west 
wall of the Upper City, and Herod's three great towers at 
the north-west corner, which were left standing as memorials 
of the massive nature of the fortifications. 

Of the Jews, the aged and infirm were killed ; the children 
under seventeen were sold as slaves ; the rest were sent, some 
to the Egyptian mines, some to the provincial amphitheatres, 
and some to grace the triumph of the Conqueror. Titus then 
departed, leaving the 10th legion, under the command of 
Terentius Rufus, to carry out the work of demolition. Of this 
Josephus assures us, that l the whole was so thoroughly lev 



a.d, 70 -132. Later History of Jerusalem. 135 

eled and dug up, that no one visiting it would believe that it 
had ever been inhabited." 

§ 12. The great interest belonging to Jerusalem as the cen< 
tral scene of Sacred History, and especially in connection with 
our Lord's prediction of the destruction of the Temple, seems 
to demand a few words by way of supplement. For more 
than fifty years after its destruction by Titus, Jerusalem dis- 
appears from history. During the revolts of the Jews in 
Cyrenaica, Egypt, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia, which disturbed 
the latter years of Trajan, the recovery of their city was nev- 
er attempted. Of its annals during this period we know 
nothing. Three towers and part of the western wall alone 
remained of its strong fortifications, to protect the cohorts 
who occupied the conquered city ; and the soldiers' huts were 
long the only buildings on its site. But in the reign of 
Hadrian it again emerged from its obscurity, and became the 
centre of an insurrection, which the best blood of Rome was 
shed to subdue. In despair of keeping the Jews in subjection 
by other means, the Emperor had formed a design to restore 
Jerusalem, and thus prevent it from ever becoming a rallying 
point for this turbulent race. In furtherance of his plan he 
had sent thither a colony of veterans, in numbers sufficient for 
the defense of a position so strong by nature against the then 
known modes of attack. To this measure Dion Cassius 96 at- 
tributes a renewal of the insurrection, while Eusebius asserts 
that it was not carried into execution till the outbreak was 
quelled. Be this as it may, the embers of revolt, long smoul- 
dering, burst into a flame soon after Hadrian's departure from 
the East in a.d. 132. The contemptuous indifference of the 
Romans, or the secrecy of their own plans, enabled the Jews 
to organize a wide-spread conspiracy. Bar-Cocheba, their 
leader, the third, according to Rabbinical writers, of a dy- 
nasty of the same name, princes of the captivity, was crowned 
king at Bether by the Jews who thronged, to him, and by the 
populace was regarded as the Messiah. His armor-bearer, 
Rabbi Akiba, claimed descent from Sisera, and hated the 
Romans with the fierce rancor of his adopted nation. All 
the Jews in Palestine flocked to his standard. At an early 
period in the revolt they became masters of Jerusalem, and 
attempted to rebuild the Temple. Hadrian, alarmed at the 
rapid spread of the insurrection, and the ineffectual efforts of 
his troops to repress it, summoned from Britain Julius Severus, 
the greatest general of his time, to take the command of the 

96 lxix. 12. 



136 Judcea under the Romans. Chap. V 

army of Judaea. Two years were spent in a fierce guerrilla 
warfare, before Jerusalem was taken, after a desperate de- 
fense in which Bar-Cocheba perished. The courage of the 
defenders was shaken by the falling in of the vaults on Mount 
Zion, and the Romans became masters of the position. But 
the war did not end with the capture of the city. The Jews 
in great force had occupied the fortress of Bether, and there 
maintained a struggle with all the tenacity of despair against 
the repeated onsets of the Romans. At length, worn out by 
famine and disease, they yielded on the 9th of the month Ab, 
a.d. 135, and the grandson of Bar-Cocheba was among the 
slain. The slaughter -was frightful. Five hundred and 
eighty thousand are said to have fallen by the sword, while 
the number of victims to the attendant calamities of war was 
coimtless. On the side of the Romans the loss was enormous, 
and so dearly bought was their victory, that Hadrian, in his 
letter to the Senate, announcing the conclusion of the war, 
did not adopt the usual congratulatory phrase. Bar-Cocheba 
has left traces of his occupation of Jerusalem, in coins which 
were struck during the first two years of the war. Four sil- 
ver coins, three of them undoubtedly belonging to Trajan, 
have been discovered, restamped with Samaritan characters. 
But the rebel leader, amply supplied with the precious metals 
by the contributions of his followers, afterward coined his 
own money. The mint was probably at Jerusalem during the 
first two years of the war; the coins struck during that 
period bearing the inscription, " To the freedom of Jerusalem," 
or " Jerusalem the holy." They are mentioned in both Tal- 
muds. 

Hadrian's first policy, after the suppression of the revolt, 
was to obliterate the existence of Jerusalem as a city. The 
ruins which Titus had left were razed to the ground, and the 
plough passed over the foundations of the Temple. A colony 
of Roman citizens occupied the new city which rose from the 
ashes of Jerusalem, and their number was afterward aug- 
mented by the Emperor's veteran legionaries. A temple to 
the Capitoline Jupiter was erected on the site of the sacred 
edifice of the Jews. A temple to Astarte, the Phoenician 
Venus, on the site afterward identified with the Sepulchre, 
appears on coins, with four columns and the inscription C. A. 
C, Colonia JElia Capitolina, but it is more than doubtful 
whether it was erected at this time. 

It was not, however, till the following year, a.d. 136, that 
Hadrian, on celebrating his Vicennalia, bestowed upon the 
new city the name of JElia Capitolina, combining with Ms 



A.D. 136-362. Later History of Jerusalem. 137 

own family title the name of Jupiter of the Capitol, the guard- 
ian deity of the colony. Christians and pagans alone were al- 
lowed to reside in the city. Jews were forbidden to enter it on 
pain of death, and this prohibition remained in force in the time 
of Tertullian. About the middle of the 4th century the Jews 
were allowed to visit the neighborhood, and afterward, once 
a year, to enter the city itself, and weep over it on the anni- 
versary of its capture. Jerome 97 has drawn a vivid picture 
of the wretched crowds of Jews who in his day assembled at 
the wailing-place by the west wall of the Temple to bemoan 
the loss of their ancestral greatness. On the ninth of the 
month Ab might be seen the aged and decrepit of both sexes, 
with tattered garments and disheveled hair, who met to weep 
over the downfall of Jerusalem, and purchased permission of 
the soldiery to prolong their lamentations (" et miles mercedem 
postulat ut illis flere plus liceat"). So completely were all 
traces of the ancient city obliterated, that its very name was 
in process of time forgotten. It was not till after Constan- 
tine built the Martyrion on the site of the crucifixion, that its 
ancient appellation was revived. In the 7th canon of the 
Council of Nicaea the bishop of JElia is mentioned; but 
Macarius, in subscribing to the canons, designated himself 
bishop of Jerusalem. The name of iElia occurs as late as 
a. d. 697, and is even found in Edrisi and Mejr ed-Din about 
1495. 

After the inauguration of the new colony of iElia the annals 
of the city again relapse into an obscurity, which is only rep- 
resented in history by a list of twenty-three Christian bishops, 
who filled up the interval between the election of Marcus, the 
first of the series, and Macarius in the reign of Constantine. 
Already in the third century the Holy Places had become ob- 
jects of enthusiasm, and the pilgrimage of Alexander, a bishop 
in Cappadocia, and afterward of Jerusalem, is matter of his- 
tory. In the following century such pilgrimages became 
more common. The aged Empress Helena, mother of Con- 
stantine, visited Palestine in a. d. 326 a _ and, according to tradi- 
tion, erected magnificent churcnes at Bethlehem and on the 
Mount of Olives. Her son, fired with the same zeal, swept 
away the shrine of Astarte, which occupied the site of the 
Resurrection, and founded in its stead a chapel or oratory. 
On the east of this was a large court, the eastern side being 
formed by the Basilica, erected on the spot where the cross 
was said to have been found. The latter of these build' 

97 On Zeph. i. 15. 



138 



Judcea under the Romans. 



Chap. V. 



ings is that known as the Martyrion ; the former was the 
church of the Anastasis, or Resurrection. In the reign of 
Julian (a.d. 362) the Jews, with the permission and at the in- 
stigation of the Emperor, made an abortive attempt to lay 
the foundations of a temple. From whatever motive, Julian 
had formed the design of restoring the Jewish worship on 
Mount Moriah to its pristine splendor, and during his absence 
in the East the execution of his project was entrusted to his 
favorite, Alypius of Antioch. Materials of every kind were 
provided at the Emperor's expense, and so great was the en- 
thusiasm of the Jews, that their women took part in the work, 
and in the laps of their garments carried off the earth which 
covered the ruins of the Temple. But a sudden whirlwind 
and earthquake shattered the stones of the former founda- 
tions; the workmen fled for shelter to one of the neighboring 
churches, the doors of which were closed against them by an 
invisible hand, and a fire issuing from the Temple mount 
raged the whole day and consumed their tools. Numbers per- 
ished in the flames. Some who escaped took refuge in a por- 
tico near at hand, which fell at night and crushed them as 
they slept. Whatever may have been the coloring which this 
story received as it passed through the hands of the ecclesias- 
tical historians, the impartial narrative of Ammianus Marcel- 
linus, 98 the friend and companion in arms of the Emperor, 
leaves no reasonable doubt of the truth of the main facts that 
the work was interrupted by fire, which all attributed to super- 
natural agency. In the time of Chrysostom the foundations 
of the Temple still remained, to which the orator could appeal. 
The event was regarded as a judgment of God upon the im- 
pious attempt of Julian to falsify the predictions of Christ: 
a position which Bishop Warburton defends with great skill 
in his treatise on the subject; but other writers of high au- 
thority regard it as a legend invented by superfluous and 
short-sighted zeal." 



98 xxiii. 1. 

99 The preceding account of the 
siege of Jerusalem bv Titus and its 



[ucnt history is taken, with a 
few additions, from the article Jeru- 
salem in the Dictionary of the Bible, 



Chap. V. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



139 



NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



GOVERNORS OF SYRIA. 



The list of the 


governors of Sy 


•ia, from 


its conquest by the Romans to the 


destruc- 


tion of Jerusalem 


, has been made 


Mit with 


a near approach to accuracy, and is as fol- 


lows : 








Titles Date of 


Date of 


Names. 


of entering 


quitting 




office, office. 


office. 




( Quaestor 




M. iEmilius Scaurus 


. ■< pro B.C. 


B.C. 




( prretore 62 . 


. 61 


L. Marcius Philippus 


Proprajtor 61 . 


. 59 


Lentulus Marcellinus 


Propraetor 59 . 


. 57 


Gabinius . 


Proconsul 56 . 


. 55 


Crassus . 


55 . 


. 53 


Cassiua . 


Quasstor . 53 . 


. 51 


M. Calpurnius Bibulu 


s . Proconsul 51 . 


. 47 


Sext. Julius Cassar 


47 . 


. 46 


Q. Caecilius Bassus 


Praetor . 48 . 


. 44 


(Q. Cornificius 


. i received authority from 


(L. Statius Murcus 


. < the Senate to dispossess 


(Q. Marcius Crispus 


. ( Bassus, but failed). 




B.C. 


B.C. 


C. Cassius Longinus 


Proconsul 43 . 


. 42 


L. Decidius Saxa . 


Legatus .41 . 


. 40 


P. Ventidius Bassus 


Legatus . 40 . 


. 38 


C. Sosius . 


Legatus . 38 . 


. 35 


L. Munatius Plancus 


. Legatus . 35 . 


, 32 



Titles Date of Date of 

of entering quitting 

office. office. office. 



L. Calpurnius Bibulus 


Legatus 


31 . 


31 


Q. Didius .... 


Legatus . 


30 




M. Valerius Messalla 


Legatus 


29 . 


29 


Varro .... 


Legatus 


24 




M. Vipsanius Agrippa 


Legatus 


22 . 


20 


M. Tullius . ... 


Legatus 


19(?) 




M. Vipsanius Agrippa 


Legatus . 


15 




M. Titius 


Legatus . 


11 . 


7 


C. Sentius Saturninus 


Legatus 


7 . 


3 

A.P 


P. Quintilius Varus 


Legatus . 


3 . 
A.D. 


5 


P. Sulpicius Quirinus 


Legatus . 


5 




Q. Caacilius Metellus 
Creticns Silanus 


S Legatus . 




1; 


M. Calpurnius Piso . 


Legatus . 


17 . 


19 


Cn. Sentius Saturninus 


Prolegatus 


19 




L. Pomponius Flaccus . 


Propraetor 


22 . . 


33 


L. Vitellius . . . . 


Legatus . 


35 . . 


30 


P. Petronius . . . . 


Legatus . 


39 . . 


42 


Vibius Marsus 


Legatus . 


42 . . 


48 


C. Cassius Longinus . 


Legatus '. 


48 . . 


51 


T. Numidius* Quadratus 


Legatus . 


51 . . 


60 


Domitius Corbulo 


Legatus . 


60 . . 


6? 


Cincius . 


Legatus . 


63 




C. Cestius Gallus . . 


Legatus . 


65 . . 


6? 


P. Licinius Mucianus 


Legatus . 


67 . . 


6? 



* Called " Vinidius " by Tacitus. 



APPENDIX TO BOOK 1 



SECTION I. 

THE SEVERAL BRANCHES OP THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 

§ 1, Introduction. § 2. The Jews of Jut>je\. § 3. The Samaritaks— Their origin, char- 
acter, opposition to the Jews, and present state. § 4. The Dispersion — Origin and ex- 
tent. §5. The Babylonian Dispersion. § C. The Syrian Dispersion. § 7. Alexandrian 
Jews. § 8. Jews in other parts of Africa. § 9. Jews at Rome. § 10. Influence of the 
Dispersion upon the spread of Christianity. § 11. The Proselytes. 

§ 1. For the full understanding of the new ecclesiastical commonwealth, 
which was founded in Judasa on the return from the Captivity, and the rel- 
ics of which survived even the destruction of Jerusalem, there remain cer- 
tain topics, which could not be conveniently worked into the text. Among 
them are some of the highest importance, not only because of the direct al- 
lusions to them in the New Testament, but for the comprehension of the 
whole character of the Jewish nation at the time of Christ, and during the 
first period of the diffusion of Christianity. 

§ 2. The Jews of Judaea have formed the main subject of our narrative ; 
and it is only necessary to remind the reader that the few Jews scattered 
among the heathen settlers of Northern Palestine were recognized as be- 
longing to the commonwealth of Israel, in a manner strikingly contrasted 
with the exclusion and hatred of the Samaritans. 

§ 3. The Samaritans. Though so jealously rejected by the Jews, from 
the first moment of their return, the half-heathen Samaritans demand a 
place in Jewish history, from their position in the very centre of Palestine, 
and from their own high claims of rivalry with the Jews. 

The strangers, whom we have seen placed in " the cities of Samai-ia" by 
Esarhaddon, were of course idolaters, and worshiped a strange medley of 
divinities. 1 Each of the five nations, says Josephus, who is confirmed 
by the words of Scripture, had its own god. No place was found for the 
worship of Him who had once called the land His own, and whose it was 
still. God's displeasure was kindled, and they were infested by beasts of 
prey, which had probably increased to a great extent before their entrance 
upon the land. "The Lord sent lions among them, which slew' some of 
them." On their explaining their miserable condition to the King of As- 
syria, he dispatched one of the captive priests to teach them "how they 
should fear the Lord." The priest came accoi'dingly, and henceforth, in 
the language of the sacred historian, they "feared the Lord, and served 
their graven images, both their children and their children's children : as 

i Old Test. Hist. chap. xxiv. 



Sect. I. The Samaritans. 14j( 

did their fathers, so do they unto this day." 2 This last sentence was prob* 
ably inserted by Ezra. It serves two purposes: 1st, to qualify the preten- 
sions of the Samaritans of Ezra's time to be pure worshipers of God — they 
were no more exclusively his servants, than was the Roman Emperor, who 
desired to place a statue of Christ in the Pantheon, entitled to be called a 
Christian ; and, 2dly, to show how entirely the Samaritans of later days 
differed from their ancestors in respect to idolatry. 3 

Such was the origin of the post-captivity or new Samaritans, men not of 
Jewish extraction, but from the further East.* Oar Lord expressly terms 
them aliens. 5 A gap occurs in their history, until Judah has returned 
from captivity. They then desire to be allowed to participate in the re- 
building of the Temple at Jerusalem. It is curious, and perhaps indicative 
of the treacherous character of their designs, to find them even then called 
by anticipation, "the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin," 6 a title which 
they afterward fully justified. But, so far as professions go, they are not 
enemies ; they are most anxious to be friends. Their religion, they assert; 
is the same as that of the two tribes, therefore they have a right to share in 
that great religious undertaking. But they do not call it a national under- 
taking. They advance no pretensions to Jewish blood. They confess their 
Assyrian descent, and even put it forward ostentatiously, perhaps to en- 
hance the merit of their partial conversion to God. That it was but par- 
tial they give no hint. It may have become purer already, but we have no 
information that it had. Be this, however, as it may, the Jews do not list- 
en favorably to their overtures. Ezra, no doubt, from whose pen we 
have a record of the transaction, saw them through and through. On this 
the Samaritans throw off the mask, and become open enemies, frustrate the 
operations of the Jews through the reigns of two Persian kings, and are 
only effectually silenced in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, b.c. 519. 

The feud, thus unhappily begun, grew year by year more inveterate. It 
is probable, too, that the more the Samaritans detached themselves from 
idols, and became devoted exclusively to a sort of worship of Jehovah, the 
more they resented the contempt with which the Jews treated their offers 
of fraternization. Matters at length came to a climax. About b.c. 409, 
a certain Manasseh, a man of priestly lineage, on being expelled from Jeru- 
salem by Nehemiah for an unlawful marriage, obtained permission from the 
Persian king of his day, Darius Nothus, to build a temple on Mount Ger- 
izim for the Samaritans, with whom he had found refuge. The only thing 
wanting to crystallize the opposition between the two races, viz., a rallying 
point for schism atical worship, being now obtained, their animosity became 
more intense than ever. The Samaritans are said to have done every thing 
in their power to annoy the Jews. They would refuse hospitality to pil- 
grims on their road to Jerusalem, as in our Lord's case. They would even 
waylay th§m in their journey; 7 and many were compelled through fear to 
take the longer route by the east of Jordan. Certain Samaritans were said 

2 2 K. xvii. 41. j phus's whole account of them shows that h& 

3 Josephus's account of the distress of the helieved them to have been fxerocKoi u\- 
Samaritans, and -of the remedy devised for ; XoeOvets, though, as he tells us in two 
it, is very similar, with the exception that places {Ant. ix. 14, § 3, and xi. 8, §6), they 
with him they are afflicted with pestilence, j sometimes gave a different 'account of their 

4 2 K. xvii. 24. Cuthseans, says Josephus, ; origin. 

from the interior of Persis and Media. 6 Ezr. iv. 1. 

5 <i\Xo7«vc»r, Luke xvii. 13. And Jose- ' 7 Joseph. Ant. :x. 6, § 1, 



142 Branches of the Jewish People. Appendix 

to have once penetrated into the Temple of Jerusalem, and to have defiled 
it by scattering dead men's bones on the sacred pavement. 8 We are told 
too of a strange piece of mockery which must have been especially resented. 
It was the custom of the Jews to communicate to their brethren still in 
Babylon the exact day and hour of the rising of the paschal moon, by bea 
con-fires commencing from Mount Olivet, and flashing forward from hill to 
hill until they were mirrored in the Euphrates. So the Greek poet repre- 
sents Agamemnon as conveying the news of Troy's capture to the anxious 
watchers at Mycenas. Those who "sat by the waters of Babylon" look- 
ed for this signal with much interest. It enabled them to share in the de- 
votions of those who were in their father-land, and it proved to them that 
they were not forgotten. The Samaritans thought scorn of these feelings, 
and would not unfrequently deceive and disappoint them, by kindling a ri- 
val flame and perplexing the watchers on the mountains. Their own tem- 
ple on Gerizim they considered to be much superior to that at Jerusalem. 
There they sacrificed a passover. Toward the mountain, even after the 
temple on it had fallen, wherever they were, they directed their worship. 
To their copy of the Law they arrogated an antiquity and authority great- 
er than attached to any copy in the possession of the Jews. The Law (t. e., 
the five books of Moses) was their sole code ; for they rejected every other 
book in the Jewish canon. And they professed to observe it better than 
did the Jews themselves, employing the expression not unfrequently, 
" The Jews indeed do so and so ; but we, observing the letter of the Law, 
do otherwise." 

The Jews, on the other hand, were not more conciliatory in their treat- 
ment of the Samaritans. The copy of the Law possessed by that people they 
declared to be the legacy of an apostate (Manasseh), and cast grave suspi- 
cions upon its genuineness. Certain other Jewish renegades had from time 
to time taken refuge with the Samaritans. Hence, by degrees, the Samar- 
itans claimed to partake of Jewish blood, especially if doing.so happened to 
suit their interest. 9 A remarkable instance of this is exhibited in a request 
which they made to Alexander the Great, about B.C. 332. They desired 
to be excused payment of tribute in the Sabbatical year, on the plea that as 
true Israelites, descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Joseph, they 
refrained from cultivating their land in that year. Alexander, on cross- 
questioning them, discovered the hollowness of their pretensions. They 
Avere greatly disconcerted at their failure, and their dissatisfaction probably 
led to the conduct which induced Alexander to besiege and destroy the city 
of Samaria. 10 Another instance of claim to Jewish descent appears in the 
words of the woman of Samaria to our Lord, "Art thou greater than our 
father Jacob, which gave us this well?" 1X — a question which she puts with- 
out recollecting that she had just before strongly contrasted the Jews and 
the Samaritans. Very far were the Jews from admitting this claim to 
consanguinity on the part of these people. They were ever reminding them 
that they were after all mere Cuthseans, mere strangers from Assyria. 
They accused them of worshiping the idol gods buried long ago under the 
oak of Shechem. 12 They would have no dealings with them that they could 

8 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 2, § 2. r rponoXi?, but the destruction of Samaris 

9 Joseph. Ant. xi. 8, § 6, ix. 14, §3. seems to have satisfied Alexander, 
'"Shechem (zUi/jlo) was indeed their t xn- \ ]1 John iv. 12. 

12 Gen. xxxv. 4. 



Sf,ct. I. 



The Samaritans. 



143 



possibly avoid. 13 "Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil," was the mode 
m which they expressed themselves when at a loss for a bitter reproach. 
Every thing that a Samaritan had touched was as swine's flesh to them. 
The Samaritan was publicly cursed in their synagogues — could not be ad« 
duced as a witness in the Jewish courts — could not be admitted to any sort 
of proselytism — and was thus, so far as the Jew could affect his position, ex- 
cluded from hope of eternal life. The traditional hatred in which the Jew 
held him is expressed in Ecclus. 1. 25, 26, " There be two manner of na- 
tions which my heart abhorreth, and the third is no nation : they that sit in 
the mountain of Samaria ; and they that dwell among the Philistines ; and 
that foolish people that dwell in Sichem." And so long was it before such 
a temper could be banished from the Jewish mind, that we find even the 
Apostles believing that an inhospitable slight shown by a Samaritan village 
to Christ would be not unduly avenged by calling down fire from heaven. 

"Ye know not what spirit ye are of," said the large-hearted Son of Man, 
and Ave find him on no one occasion uttering any thing to the disparage- 
ment of the Samaritans. His words, however, and the records of his 
ministrations, confirm most thoroughly the view which has been taken above, 
that the Samaritans were not Jews. At the first sending forth of the 
Twelve, 14 he charges them, " Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into 
any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel." So again, in his final address to them on Mount 
Olivet, "Ye shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judaea, and 
in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." 15 So the nine un- 
thankful lepers, Jews, were contrasted by him with the tenth leper, the 
thankful stranger, who was a Samaritan. So, in his well-known parable, 
a merciful Samaritan is contrasted with the unmerciful priest and Levite. 
And the very worship of the two races is described by him as different 
in character. "Ye worship ye know not what, "he said of the Samari- 
tans : " We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews." 16 

Such were the Samaritans of our Lord's day : a people distinct from the 
Jews, though lying in the very midst of the Jews ; a people preserving their 
identity, though seven centuries had rolled away since they had been 
brought from Assyria by Esarhaddon, and though they had abandoned 
their polytheism for a sort of ultra Mosaicism ; a people, who — though 
their limits had been gradually contracted, and the rallying place of their 
religion on Mount Gerizim had been destroyed one hundi'ed and forty 
years before by John Hyrcanus (b.c. 109), and though Samaria (the city) 
had been again and again destroyed, and though their territory had been 
the battle-field of Syria and Egypt — still preserved nationality, still wor- 
shiped from Shechem and their other impoverished settlements toward their 
sacred hill ; still retained their separation, and could not coalesce with the 
Jews. Not indeed that we must suppose that the whole of the country 
called in our Lord's time Samaria, was in the possession of the Cuthaean 



13 This prejudice had, of course, sometimes 
to give way to necessity, for the disciples 
had gone to Sychar (Shechem, sUi/ma) to buy 
food, while our Lord was talking with the 
woman of Samaria by the well in its suburb 
(John iv. 8). And from Luke ix. 52, we 
learn that the disciples went before our 
Lord at his command into a certain village 



of the Samaritans "to make ready" for 
him. Unless, indeed (though, as we see on 
both occasions, our Lord's influence over 
them was not yet complete), we are to at- 
tribute this partial abandonment of their or 
dinary scruples to the change which his ex- 
ample had already wrought in them. 

1* Matt. x. 5, 6. is Acts i. 8. '^ John iv. 2Q 



144 Branches of the Jewish People. Appendix 

Samaritans, or that it had ever been so. "Samaria," says Josephus," 
' ' lies between Judaia and Galilee. It commences from a village called 
Ginaea (Jenin), on the great plain, that of Esdraelon, and extends to the 
toparchy of Acrabatta," in the lower part of the territory of Ephraim. 
These points, indicating the extreme northern and the extreme southern 
parallels of latitude between which Samaria was situated, enable us to fix 
its boundaries with tolerable certainty. It was bounded northward by the 
range of hills which commences at Mount Carmel on the west, and, after 
making a bend to the south-west, runs almost due east to the valley of the 
Jordan, forming the southern border of the plain of Esdraelon. It touch 
ed toward the south, as nearly as possible, the northern limits of Benja- 
min. Thus it comprehended the ancient territory of Ephraim, and of those 
Manassites who were west of Jordan. "Its character," Jpsephus contin- 
ues, " is in no respect different from that of Judeea. Both abound in 
mountains and plains, and are suited for agriculture, and productive, wood- 
ed, and full of fruits both wild and cultivated. They are not abundantly 
watered ; but much rain falls there. The springs are of an exceedingly 
sweet taste ; and, on account of the quantity of good grass, the cattle there 
produce more milk than elsewhere. But the best proof of their richness 
and fertility is that both are thickly populated." The accounts of modern 
travelers confirm this description by the Jewish historian of the "good 
land " which was allotted to that powerful portion of the house of Joseph 
which crossed the Jordan, on the first division of the territory. The 
Cuthaean Samaritans, however, possessed only a few towns and villages of 
this large area, and these lay almost together in the centre of the district. 
Shechem or Sychar (as it was contemptuously designated) was their chief 
settlement, even before Alexander the Great destroyed Samaria, probably 
because it lay almost close to Mount Gerizim. Afterward it became more 
prominently so, and there, on the destruction of the temple on Gerizim, by 
John Hycranus, 18 they built themselves a poor temple. The modern 
representative of Shechem is Nablus, a corruption of Neapolis, or the 
"New Town" built by Vespasian a little to the west of the older town, 
which was then ruined. At Nablus, though in very mean plight, the Sa- 
maritans have a settlement still, consisting of about 200 persons. Yet 
they observe the Law, and celebrate the Passover on a sacred spot on 
Mount Gerizim with an exactness of minute ceremonial which the Jews 
themselves have long intermitted. 10 Of the Samaritan Pentateuch we shall 
have to speak presently. 

§ 4. The Jews of the Dispersion, or simply The Dispersion, was 
the general title applied to those Jews who remained settled in foreign 
countries after the return from the Babylonian exile, and during the 
period of the second Temple. The Dispersion, as a distinct element in- 
fluencing the entire character of the Jews, dates from the Babylonian exile. 
Uncertain legends point to earlier settlements in Arabia, Ethiopia, and Abys- 
sinia ; but even if these settlements were made, they were isolated and casu- 
al, while the Dispersion, of which Babylon was the acknowledged centre, was 
the outward proof that a faith had succeeded to a kingdom. Apart from 



"B. J. Hi. 3, §4. 

18 .Toseph. Ant. xiii. 9, §1. 
19 For accounts of their celebration of the 
Day of Atonement »ud the Passover, see 



Grove in Vacation Tourists, 1861, and Stan- 
ley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, Appen- 
dix iii. 



Sect. I. Jews of the Dispersion. 145 

the necessary influence which Jewish communities, bound by common lawa, 
ennobled by the possession of the same truths, and animated by kindred 
hopes, must have exercised on the nations among whom they were scattered, 
the difficulties which set aside the literal observance of the Mosaic ritual led 
to a wider view of the scope of the law, and a stronger sense of its spiritual 
significance. Outwardly and inwardly, by its effects both on the Gentiles 
and on the people of Israel, the Dispersion appears to have been the clear- 
est providential preparation for the spread of Christianity. 

But while the fact of a recognized Dispersion must have weakened the 
local and ceremonial influences which were essential to the first training of 
the people of God, the Dispersion was still bound together in itself and to 
its mother country by religous ties. The Temple was the acknowledged 
centre of Judaism, and the faithful Jew everywhere contributed the half- 
shekel toward its maintenance. 20 Treasuries were established to receive 
the payments of different districts, and the collected sums were forwarded 
to Jerusalem, as in later times the Mahometan offerings were sent to 
Mecca. 

§ 5. At the beginning of the Christian era the Dispersion was divided 
into three great sections, the Babylonian, the Syrian, the Egyptian. Pre*, 
cedence was yielded to the first. The jealousy which had originally exist- 
ed between the poor who returned to Palestine and their wealthier country- 
men at Babylon had passed away, and Gamaliel wrote "to the sons of the 
Dispersion in Babylonia, and to our brethren in Media . . . and to all the 
Dispersion of Israel." From Babylon the Jews spread throughout Persia, 
Media, and Parthia ; but the settlements in China belong to a modern date. 
The few details of their history which have been preserved bear witness to 
their pi-osperity and influence. No schools of learning are noticed, but 
Hillel the Elder and Nahum the Mede are mentioned as coming from 
Babylon to Jerusalem. 

§ 6. The Greek conquests in Asia extended the limits of the Dispersion. 
Seleucus Nicator transplanted largebodies of Jewish colonists from Babylo- 
nia to the capitals of his western provinces. His policy was followed by 
his successor Antiochus the Great ; and the persecutions of Antiochus 
Epiphanes only served to push forward the Jewish emigration to the remoter 
districts of his empire. In Armenia the Jews arrived at the greatest digni- 
ties, and Nisibis became a 'new centre of colonization. The Jews of 
Cappadocia 21 are casually mentioned in the Mishna ; and a prince and prin- 
cess of Adiabene adopted the Jewish faith only thirty years before the 
destruction of the Temple. Large settlements of Jews were established in 
Cyprus, in the islands of the iEgsean, and on the western coast of Asia 
Minor. The Romans confirmed to them the privileges which they had 
obtained from the Syrian kings ; and though they were exposed to sudden 
outbursts of popular violence, the Jews of the Syrian provinces gradually 
formed a closer connection with their new homes, and together with the 
Greek language adopted in many respects Greek ideas, and so became 
* 5 Hellenists.'''' 

§ 7. This Hellenizing tendency, however, found its most free develop 
ment at Alexandria. According to Josephus, Alexander himself assigned 
to. the Jews a place in his new city ; ' ' and they obtained, " he adds, c ' equal 

50 t6 5l6paxiJ.ov, Matt. xvii. 24. 21 1 p e t, i. 1, 

G 



146 Branches of the Jewish People. Appendix. 

privileges with the Macedonians" 22 in consideration " of their services 
against the Egyptians." 23 Ptolemy I. imitated the policy of Alexander, and 
after the capture of Jerusalem he removed a considerable number of its citi- 
zens to Alexandria. The numbers and importance of the Egyptian Jews were 
rapidly increased under the Ptolemies by fresh immigrations and untiring 
industry. Philo estimates them in his time at little less than 1,000,000 ; 24 
and adds, that two of the five districts of Alexandria were called "Jewish 
districts ;" and that many Jews lived scattered in the remaining three. 
Eor some time the Jewish Church in Alexandria was in close dependence 
on that of Jerusalem. Both were subject to the civil power of the first 
Ptolemies, and both acknowledged the high-priest as their religious head. 
The persecution of Ptolemy IV. Philopator (217 b.c.) occasioned the first 
political separation between the two bodies. Erom that time the Jews of 
Palestine attached themselves to the fortunes of Syria ; and the same pol- 
icy which alienated the Palestinian party gave unity and decision to the 
Jews of Alexandria. The Septuagint translation, which strengthened the 
barrier of language between Palestine and Egypt, and the temple ofLeon- 
topolis (161 b.c.) which subjected the- Egyptian Jews to the charge of 
schism, widened the breach which was thus opened. But the division, 
though marked, was not complete. At the beginning of the Christian era 
the Egyptian Jews still paid the contributions to the temple-service. Je- 
rusalem, though its name was fashioned to a Greek shape, was still the 
Holy City — the metropolis, not of a country, but of a people — and the Al- 
exandrians had a synagogue there. 25 The internal administration of the 
Alexandrine Church was independent of the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem ; but 
respect survived submission. There were, however, other causes which 
tended to produce at Alexandria a distinct form of the Jewish character 
and faith. The religion and philosophy of that restless city produced an 
effect upon the people more powerful than the influence of politics or com- 
merce. Alexander himself symbolized the spirit with which he wished to 
animate his new capital by founding a temple of Isis side by side with the 
temples of the Grecian gods. The creeds of the East and West were to 
co-exist in friendly union ; and in after times the mixed worship of Serapis 
was characteristic of the Greek kingdom of Egypt. This catholicity of wor- 
ship was further combined with the spread of universal learning. The 
same monarchs who favored the worship of Serapis founded and embellish- 
ed the Museum and Library ; and part of the Library was deposited in the 
Serapeum. The new faith and the new literature led to a common issue ; 
and the Egyptian Jews necessarily imbibed the spirit which prevailed 
around them. The Jews were, indeed, peculiarly susceptible of the influ- 
ences to which they were exposed. They presented from the first a capac- 
ity for Eastern or Western development. To the faith and conservatism 
of the Oriental they united the activity and energy of the Greek. The 
mere presence of Hellenic culture could not fail to call into play their pow- 
ers of speculation, which were hardly repressed by the traditional legalism 
of Palestine ; and the unchanging element of divine revelation, which they 
always retained, enabled them to harmonize new thought Avith old belief. 
But while the intercourse of the Jew and Greek would have produced the 
same general consequences in any case, Alexandria was peculiarly adapt- 

23 C. Ap. ii. iv. 23 B. J. ii. 13, 7. ** In Flacc. § 6, p. 971 . 25 Acts vi. 9. 



Sect. I. Jevjs of the Dispersion. 147 

ed to ensure their full effect. The result of the contact of Judaism with 
the many creeds which were current there must have been speedy and 
powerful. The allegoric exposition of the Pentateuch by Aristobulus, 
which is the earliest Greek fragment of Jewish writing that has been pre* 
served (about 160 B.C.), contains large Orphic quotations which had been 
already moulded into a Jewish form, and the attempt thus made to con- 
nect the most ancient Hellenic traditions with the Law was often repeated 
afterward. But the indirect influence of Greek literature and philosophy 
produced still greater effects upon the Alexandrine Jews than the open 
conflict and combination of religious dogmas. The literary school of Al- 
exandria was essentially critical and not creative. For the first time men 
labored to collect, revise, and classify all the records of the past. Poets 
trusted to their learning rather than to their imagination. Language be- 
came a study ; and the legends of early mythology are transformed into 
philosophic mysteries. The Jews took a vigorous share in these new stud- 
ies. The caution against writing, Avhich became a settled law in Pales- 
tine, found no favor in Egypt. Numerous authors adapted the history of 
the Patriarchs, of Moses, and of the Kings, to classical models (Eupole- 
mus, Artapanus (?), Demetrius, Aristoeus, Cleodemus or Malchas, " a 
prophet "). A poem, which bears the name of Phocylidcs, gives in verse 
various precepts of Leviticus ; and several large fragments of a "tragedy " 
in which Ezekiel (c. B.C. 110) dramatized the Exodus, have been preserved 
by Eusebius, who also quotes numerous passages in heroic verse from the 
elder Philo and Theodotus. The same Aristobulus who gave currency to the 
Judaeo-Orphic verses endeavored to show that the Pentateuch was the real 
source of Greek philosophy. The proposition thus enunciated was thor- 
oughly congenial to the Alexandrine character ; and henceforth it was the 
chief object of Jewish speculation to trace out the subtle analogies which 
were supposed to exist between the writings of Moses and the teaching of 
the schools. The study of the Platonic philosophy at Alexandria gave a 
further impulse to this attempt. The belief in the existence of a spiritual 
meaning underlying the letter of Scripture was the great principle on 
which the Jewish investigations rested. The facts were supposed to be es- 
sentially symbolic : the language the veil (or sometimes the mask) which 
partly disguised from common sight the truths which it enwrapped. 

§ 8. The Jewish settlements established at Alexandria by Alexander 
and Ptolemy I. became the source of the African Dispersion, which spread 
over the north coast of Africa, and perhaps inland to Abyssinia. At Cy- 
rene and Berenice (Tripoli) the Jewish inhabitants formed a considerable 
portion of the population. The African Dispersion, like all other Jews, 
preserved their veneration for the "Holy City," and recognized the uni- 
versal claims of the Temple by the annual tribute. But the distinction in 
language led to wider differences, which were averted in Babylon by the 
currency of an Aramaic dialect. The Scriptures were no longer read 
on the Sabbath. Still the national spirit of the African Jews was not de- 
stroyed. After the destruction of the Temple, the Zealots found a recep- A 
fcion in Cyrene, and toward the close of the reign of Trajan, a.d. 115, the J 
Jewish population in Africa rose with terrible ferocity. The insurrection 
was put down by a war of extermination, and the remnant who escaped 
established themselves on the opposite coast of Europe, as the beginning 
of a new Dispersion. 



148 Branches of the Jewish People. Appendix. 

§ 9. The Jewish settlements in Rome were consequent upon the occu- 
pation of Jerusalem by Pompey, b.c. 63. The captives and emigrants 
whom he brought w r ith him were located in the trans-Tiberine quarter, 
and by degrees rose in station and importance. They were favored by 
Augustus and Tiberius after the fall of Sejanus ; and a Jewish school was 
founded at Home. In the reign of Claudius, the Jews became objects of 
suspicion from their immense numbers ; and the internal disputes, conse- 
quent perhaps upon the preaching of Christianity, led to their banishment 
from the city. i6 This expulsion, if general, can only have been tempora- 
ry, for in a few years the Jews at Rome were numerous, 27 and continued 
to be sufficiently conspicuous to attract the attention of the satirists. 28 

§ 10. The influence of the Dispersion on the rapid promulgation of 
Christianity can scarcely be overrated. The course of the apostolic 
preaching followed in a regular progress the line of the Jewish settle- 
ments. The mixed assembly from which the first converts were gathered 
on the day of Pentecost represented each division of the Dispersion ; ~ 3 
(l)Parthians . . . Mesopotamia; (2) Judoea (i. e. Syria) . . . Pamphylia; 
(3) Egypt . . . Greece ; (4) Romans . . . ; and these converts naturally 
prepared the way for the apostles in the interval which preceded the be- 
ginning of the separate apostolic missions. The names of the seven dea- 
cons arc all Greek, and one is specially described as a proselyte. 30 The 
church at Antioch, by which St. Paul was entrusted with his great work 
among the heathen, 31 included Barnabas of Cyprus, 32 Lucius of Cyrene, 
and Simeon surnamed Niger ; and among his " fellow-lahorers " at a later 
time are found Aquila of Pontus, 33 Apollos of Alexandria, 31 and Urbanus, 33 
and Clement, 30 whose names, at least, are Roman. Antioch itself became 
a centre of the Christian Church, 37 as it had been of the Jewish Disper- 
sion ; and throughout the apostolic journeys the Jews were the class to 
whom " it was necessary that the Word of God should be first spoken," 38 
and they in turn were united with the mass of the population by the in- 
termediate body of "the devout," which had recognized in various degrees 
" the faith of the God of Israel." 

§ 11. The Proselytes. After the Captivity, the Proselvtes were for 
the most part willing adherents to the Jewish faith. With the conquests 
of Alexander, the wars between Egypt and Syria, the struggle under the 
Maccabees, the expansion of the Roman empire, the Jews became more 
widely known, and their power to proselytize increased. The influence 
was sometimes obtained well, and exercised for good. In most of the 
great cities of the empire there were men who had been rescued from idol- 
atry and its attendant debasements, and brought under the power of a 
higher moral law. The converts who were thus attracted joined, with va- 
rying strictness, in the worship of the Jews. They were present in their 
synagogues ; 39 they came up as pilgrims to the great feasts at Jerusalem. 40 
In Palestine itself the influence was often stronger and better. Even 
Roman centurions learned to love the conquered nation, built synagogues 



28 Suet. Claud. 25 : Judceos impulsorc 
Chrcsto assidue tumultuantcs Roma expulit. 
A.ctn xviii. 2. 27 Acts xxviii. IT ff. 

2 3 Mart. Ep. xi. 94 ; Jnv. Sat. iii. 14. 

- 9 Acts ii. 9-1 1. 30 Acts vi. 5. 

si Acts xiii. 1. 32 Acts iv. 30. 

33 Acts xviii. 2. 



34 Acts xviii. 24 ; cf. 1 Cor. iii. 6. 

35 Rom. xvi. 9. 36 phil. iv. 3. 

37 Acts xiii. 1, xiv. 26, xv. 22, xviii. 22. 

38 Acts xiii. 46. 
Acts xiii. 42, 43, 50, xvii. 4, xviii. 7. 



Sect. I. The Proselytes. 149 

for them, 41 fasted and prayed, and gave alms, after the pattern of the 
strictest Jews, 42 and became preachers of the new faith to the soldiers 
under them. 43 Such men, drawn by what was best in Judaism, were 
naturally among the readiest receivers of the new truth which rose out of 
it, and became, in many cases, the nucleus of a Gentile church. 

Proselytism had, however, its darker side. The Jews of Palestine were 
eager to spread their faith by the same weapons as those with which they 
had defended it. Had not the power of the Empire stood in the way, the 
religion of Moses, stripped of its higher elements, might have been propa- 
gated far and \vide by force, as was afterward the religion of Mahomet. 
As it was, the Idurmeans had the alternative offered them by John Hyr- 
canus of death, exile, or circumcision. 44 The Iturajans were converted in 
the same way by Aristobulus. 45 Where force was not in their power, 46 
they obtained their ends by the most unscrupulous fraud. They appeared 
as soothsayers, diviners, exorcists; and addressed themselves especially to 
the fears and superstitions of women. Their influence over these became 
the subject of indignant satire. 47 Those who were most active in prose- 
lytizing were precisely those from whose teaching all that was most true 
and living had departed. The vices of the Jew were engrafted on the 
vices of the heathen. A repulsive casuistry released the convert from ob- 
ligations which he had before recognized, 43 while in other things he was 
bound, hand and foot, to an unhealthy superstition. It was no wonder 
that he became "twofold more the child of hell , ' 49 than the Pharisees 
themselves. 

The position of such proselytes was indeed every way pitiable. At 
Rome, and in other large cities, they became the butts of popular scurrili- 
ty. 50 Among the Jews themselves their case was not much better. Foi 
the most part the convert gained but little honor, even from those who glo- 
ried in having brought him over to their sect and party. The popular Jew- 
ish feeling about them was like the popular Christian feeling about a con- 
verted Jew. 

We find in the Talmud a distinction between Proselytes of the Gate and 
Proselytes of Righteousness. 

1. The term Proselytes of the Gate was derived from the frequently oc- 
curring description in the Law, "the stranger that is within thy gates." 5r 
Converts of this class were not bound by circumcision and the other special 
laws of the Mosaic code. It was enough for them to observe the seven 
precepts of Noah — i. e., the six supposed to have been given to Adam, (1) 
against idolatry, (2) against blaspheming, (3) against bloodshed, (4) against 
uncleanness, (5) against theft, (G) of obedience, with (7) the prohibition 
of " flesh with the blood thereof" given to Noah. The proselyte was not 
to claim the privileges of an Israelite, might not redeem his first-born, or 
pay the half-shekel. He was forbidden to study the Law under pain of 
death. The later Eabbis insisted that the profession of his faith should 
be made solemnly in the presence of three witnesses. The Jubilee was tha 



*i Luke vii. 5. « Act. x. 2, 30. « Acts x. 7. 

** Joseph. Ant. xiii. 9, § 3. 

*s Joseph. Ant. xiii. 11, § 3. 

46 The u veluti Judsei, cogemus" of Hor. 



48 The Law of the Corban may serve a» 
one instance (Matt. xv. 4-6). 
« Matt, xxiii. 15. 
50 The words " curtus," " verpes," met 



Sat. i. 4, 142, implies that they sometimes; them at every corner (Hor. Sat. i. 4, 1 42-' 
ren tn red on it even at Rome. I Mart. vii. 29, 34, 81, xi. 95, xii. 37). 

* 7 Jut. Sat. vi. E43-547. 1 41 Ex. xx. 10, etc. 



150 Branches of the Jewish People. Appendix. 

proper season for his admission. All this seems so full and precise that 
it has led many writers to look on it as representing a reality ; and most 
commentators accordingly have seen these Proselytes of the Gate in the 
"Religious proselytes," "the devout persons," "devout men," of the 
Acts. 52 It remains doubtful, however, whether it was ever more than a 
paper scheme of what ought to be, disguising itself as having actually been. 
All that can be said is, that in the time of the N. T. Ave have independent 
evidence 53 of the existence of converts of two degrees, and that the Tal 
mudic division is the formal systematizing of an earlier fact. 

2. The Proselytes of Righteousness, known also as Proselytes of the Cov- 
enant, were perfect Israelites. We learn from the Talmud that, in addi- 
tion to circumcision, baptism was also required to complete their admission 
to the faith. The proselyte was placed in a tank or pool, up to his neck in 
water. His teachers, who now acted as his sponsors, repeated the great 
commandments of the Law. These he promised and vowed to keep, and 
then, with an accompanying benediction, he plunged under the water. To 
leave one hand-breadth of his body unsubmerged would have vitiated the 
whole rite. 54 The Rabbis carried back the origin of the baptism to a 
remote antiquity, finding it in the command of Jacob 55 and of Moses. 50 
The Targum of the Pseudo-Jonathan inserts the word "Thou shalt cir- 
cumcise and baptize " in Ex. xii. 44. Even in the Ethiopic version of Matt, 
xxiii. 15, we find "compass sea and land to baptize one proselyte." The 
baptism was followed, as long as the Temple stood, by the offering or 
Corban. 

It is obvious that this account suggests many questions of grave interest. 
Was this ritual observed as early as the commencement of the first centu- 
ry? If so, was the baptism of John, or that of the Christian Church, in 
any way derived from, or connected with, the baptism of proselytes? If 
not, was the latter in any way borrowed from the former? 

It will be enough to sum up the conclusions which seem fairly to be 
drawn from the controversy on this subject. (1.) There is no direct evi- 
dence of the practice being in use before the destruction of Jerusalem. (2.) 
The negative argument drawn from the silence of the O. T., of the Apocry- 
pha, of Philo, and of Josephus, is almost decisive against the belief that there 
was, in their time, a baptism of proselytes with as much importance attach- 
ed to it as we find in the Talmudists. (3.) It is probable, however, that 
there was a baptism in use at a period considerably earlier than that for 
which we have direct evidence. (4.) The history of the N. T. itself sug- 
gests the existence of such a custom. A sign is seldom chosen unless it 
already has a meaning for those to whom it is addressed. The fitness of 
the sign in this case would be in proportion to the associations already con- 
nected with it. The question of the Priests and Levites, "Why baptiz- 
est thou then?" "implies that they wondered, not at the thing itself, but at 
its being done for Israelites by one who disclaimed the names which, in 
their eyes, would have justified the introduction of a new order. 



52 Ol aefto/jievoi irpoai]\vroi (Acts xiii. 43) ' 
ol <re/36iJ.evot (Acts xvii. 4, 17) ; avdpes 
euXafiels (Acts ii. 5). 

53 See the decree of the so-called Council 
of Jerusalem in Acta xv. 



54 Ugolini xxii. 

55 Gen. xxxv. 2. 

56 Ex. xix. 10. 
"Johni. 2& 



Sect. II The Cheek Se-ptuag int. 151 



SECTION II. 

THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

§ L The Hebrew Canon : commentaries upon it. The Mishna. § 2. Targums. § 3. 
The Greek Septoagint. § 4. The Samaritan Pentateuch. § 5. The Apocrypha— 
Meaning and origin of the word ; character of the collection. § G. Books of Esdras. 
§7. Tobit. §S. Judith. §9. Esther. § 10. The Wisdom of Solomon. § 11. Ecclesias- 
ticus. § 12. Baruch. § 13. The Song of the Three Children— Susannah— Bel and 
the Dragon. § 14. The Prayer of Manasses. § 15. Books of the Maccabees. 

§ 1. Of the Hebrew Canon an account has been already given in the 
Appendix to the Old Testament Histoi-y; 1 but on the return of the Jews 
from captivity arose two important branches of Jewish literature — the Mish- 
na and the Targums — each of which requires a few words of explanation. 

The Mishna, or the "second law," which forms the first portion of the 
Talmud, is a digest of the Jewish traditions, and a compendium of the 
whole ritual law, reduced to writing in its present form by Rabbi Jehudah 
the Holy, a Jew of great wealth and influence, who flourished in the 2d 
century before Christ, and represents the traditions which were current 
among the Jews at the time of Christ. It is very concisely written, and 
requires notes. This circumstance led to the Commentaries called Gemara 2 
(i. e., Supplement, Completion), which form the second part of the Talmud, 
and which are very commonly meant when the word " Talmud " is used by 
itself. The language of the Mishna is that of the later Hebrew, purely 
written on the whole, though with a few grammatical Aramaisms, and 
interspersed with Greek, Latin and Aramaic words which had become nat- 
uralized. The Mishna contains the oral tradition, which at length came to 
be esteemed far above the sacred text. It was the fundamental principle 
of the Pharisees that by the side of the written law there was an oral law 
to complete and to explain the written law. It was an article of faith 
that in the Pentateuch there was no precept, and no regulation, ceremonial, 
doctrinal, or legal, of which God had not given to Moses all explanations 
necessary for their application, with the order to transmit by word of mouth. 
The classical passage in the Mishna on this subject is the following: — 
" Moses received the (oral) law from Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua, and 
Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to 
the men of the Great Synagogue." 

§ 2. The Jews, on the return from captivity, no longer spoke the Hebrew 
language ; and as the common people had lost all knowledge of the tongue 
in which the sacred books were written, it naturally followed that recourse 
must be had to a translation into the idiom with which they were familiar 
— the Chaldee or Aramaic. Moreover, since a bare translation could not 

1 See p. 555, seq. f the first half of the 4th century ; and the 

2 There are two Gemaras ; one of Jerusa- I other of Babylon, completed about 500 a.d. 
lem, in which there is said to be no pas- I The latter is the most important, and by fal 
sage which can be proved to be later than j the longest. 



152 The Jewish Scriptures. Appendix 

in all cases suffice, it was necessary to add to the translation an explanation, 
more particularly of the more difficult and obscure passages. Both trans- 
lation and explanation were designated by the term Tar gum. The Tar- 
gums were originally oral, and the earliest Targum, which is that of Onke- 
los on the Pentateuch, began to be committed to memory about the 2c 
century of the Christian era ; though it did not assume its present shape till 
the end of the 3d, or the beginning of the 4th century. It is written in 
the Chaldee dialect, closely approaching in purity of idiom to that of Ezra 
and Daniel. It follows a sober and clear, though not a slavish exegesis, 
and keeps as closely and minutely to the text as is at all consistent with 
its purpose, viz., to be chiefly, and above all, a version for the people. Its 
explanations of difficult and obscure passages bear ample witness to the 
competence of those who gave it its final shape. It avoids the legendary 
character with which all the later Targum s entwine the Biblical word, as 
far as ever circumstances would allow. 3 

§ 3. The Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament, owed its 
origin to the same cause as the Targums. The Jews of Alexandria had 
probably still less knowledge of Hebrew than their brethren in Palestine ; 
their familiar language was Alexandrian Greek. They had settled in Al- 
exandria in large numbers soon after the time of Alexander, and under the 
early Ptolemies. They would naturally follow the same practice as the 
Jews in Palestine ; and hence would arise in time an entire Greek version. 
But the numbers and names of the translators, and the times at which dif- 
ferent portions were translated, are all uncertain. The common received 
story respecting its origin is contained in an extant letter ascribed to Aris- 
teas, who was an officer at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphia. This let- 
ter, which is addressed by Aristeas to his brother, Philocrates, gives a splen- 
did account of the origin of the Septuagint ; of the embassy and presents 
sent by King Ptolemy to the high -priest at Jerusalem, by the advice of 
Demetrius Phalereus, his librarian, 50 talents of gold and 70 talents of sil- 
ver, etc. ; the Jewish slaves whom he set free, paying their ransom himself; 
the letter of the king ; the answer of the high-priest ; the choosing of six 
intrepreters from each of the twelve tribes, and their names ; the copy of 
the Law, in letters of gold ; the feast prepared for the seventy-two, which 
continued for seven days ; the questions proposed to each of the interpret- 
ers in turn, with the answers of each ; their lodging by the sea-shore ; and 
the accomplishment of their work in seventy-two days, by conference and 
comparison. This is the story, which probably gave to the Version the 
title of the Septuagint, and which has been repeated in various forms by 
the Christian writers. But it is now generally admitted that the letter is 
spurious, and is probably the fabrication of an Alexandrian Jew shortly be- 
fore the Christian era. Still there can be no doubt that there was a basis 
of fact for the fiction : on three points of the story there is no material dif- 
ference of opinion, and they are confirmed by the study of the Version it- 
self: — 1. The Version was made at Alexandria. 2. It was begun in the 
time of the earlier Ptolemies, about 280 b.c. 3. The Law (i. e., the Pen- 
tateuch) alone was translated at first. 

The Septuagint version was lightly esteemed by the Hellenistic Jews be- 
fore the coming of Christ. The manner in which it is quoted by the 

3 Respecting the later Targums, see Diet, of Bible, art. Veesionr* 



Sect. II. Samaritan Pentateuch — Apocrypha. 153 

writers of the New Testament proves that it had been long in general use. 
Wherever, by the conquests of Alexander, or by colonization, the Greek 
language prevailed ; wherever Jews were settled, and the attention of the 
neighboring Gentiles was drawn to their wondrous history and law, there 
was found the Septuagint, which thus became, by Divine Providence, the 
means of spreading widely the knowledge of the One True God, and his 
promises of a Saviour to come, throughout the nations. To the wide dis- 
persion of this version we may ascribe in great measure that general per- 
suasion of the near approach of the Redeemer which prevailed over the 
whole East, and led the Magi to recognize the star which proclaimed the 
birth of the King of the Jews. 

Not less wide was the influence of the Septuagint in the spread of the 
Gospel. Many of those Jews who were assembled at Jerusalem on the day 
of Pentecost, from Asia Minor, from Africa, from Crete and Rome, used 
the Greek language ; the testimonies to Christ from the Law and the 
Prophets came to them in the words of the Septuagint ; St. Stephen prob- 
ably quoted from it in his address to the Jews ; the Ethiopian eunuch was 
reading the Septuagint version of Isaiah in his chariot ; they who were 
scattered abroad went forth into many lands, speaking of Christ in Greek, 
and pointing to the things written of him in the Greek version of Moses 
and the Prophets ; from Antioch and Alexandria in the East, to Rome and 
Massilia in the West, the voice of the Gospel sounded forth in Greek ; 
Clemens of Rome, Ignatius at Antioch, Justin Martyr in Palestine, Irenceus 
at Lyons, and many more, taught and wrote in the words of the Greek 
Scriptures ; and a still wider range was given to them by the Latin version 
(or versions) made from the LXX. for the use of the Latin Churches in 
Italy and Africa ; and in later times by the numerous other versions into the 
tongues of Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, Arabia, and Georgia. For a long peri- 
od the Septuagint was the Old Testament of the far larger part of the 
Christian Church. 

§ 4. The Samaritan Pentateuch is a Recension of the commonly re- 
ceived Hebrew Text of the Mosaic Law, in use with the Samaritans, and 
written in the ancient Hebrew, or so-called Samaritan character. It differs 
in several important points from the Hebrew text. Among these may be 
mentioned : 1 . Emendations of passages and words of the Hebrew text which 
contain something objectionable in the eyes of the Samaritans, on account 
either of historical improbability or apparent want of dignity in the terms 
applied to the Creator. Thus in the Samaritan Pentateuch no one in the 
antediluvian times begets his first son after he has lived 150 years : but one 
hundred years are, where necessary, subtracted before, and added after, the 
birth of the first son. 2. Alterations made in fiivor or on behalf of Samar- 
itan theology, hermeneutics, and domestic worship. Thus the word Elohim, 
four times construed with the plural verb in the Hebrew Pentateuch, is in 
the Samaritan Pent, joined to the singular verb (Gen. xx. 13, xxxi. 53, 
xxxv. 7; Ex. xxii. 9) ; and further, anthropomorphisms as well as anthro- 
popathisms are carefully expunged — a practice very common in later times. 
The last and perhaps most momentous of all intentional alterations is the 
constant change of all the phrases, " God will choose a spot," into " He has 
chosen," viz., Gerizim, and the well-known substitution of Gerizim for Ebal 
in Deut. xxvii. 4. In Exodus as well as in Deuteronomy the Sam- has, 
immediately after the Ten Commandments, the following insertions from 
G2 



154 



The Jewish Scriptures. 



Appendix. 



Deut. xxvii, 2-7 and xi. 30: "And it shall be on the day when ye shall 
pass over Jordan ... ye shall set up these stones ... on Mount Gerizim . . „ 
and there shalt thou build an altar . . . ' That mountain'' on the other side 
Jordan by the way where the sun goeth down ... in the champaign over 
against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh, ' over against Shecnem.' " 

The origin of the Samaritan Pentateuch has given rise to much contro- 
versy, into which we can not enter in this place. The two most usual opin- 
ions are : 1. That it came into the hands of the Samaritans as an inherit- 
ance from the ten tribes whom they succeeded. 2. That it was introduced 
by Manasseh, at the time of the foundation of the Samaritan Sanctuary on 
Mount Gerizim. 4 

§ 5. The Apocbypha. 5 The collection of Books to which this term 
is popularly applied includes the following. The order given is that in 
which they stand in the English version. I. 1 Esdras. II. 2 Esdras. III. 
Tobit„ IV, Judith. V. The rest of the chapters of the Book of Esther, 
which aro found neither in the Hebrew nor in the Chaldee. VI. The Wis- 
dom of Solomon. VII. The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, or Eccle- 
siasticuso VIII. Baruch. IX. The Song of the Three Holy Children. 
X. The History of Susanna. XI. The History of the destruction of Bel 
and the Dragon. XII. The Prayer of Manasseh, king of Judah. XIII. 
1 Maccabees. XIV. 2 Maccabees. 

The primary meaning of Apocrypha, "hidden, secret," seems, toward 
the close of the 2d century, to have been associated with the signification 
" spurious," and ultimately to have settled down into the latter. The con- 
jectural explanation given in the translation of the English Bible, 6 " because 
they were wont to be read not openly and in common, but as it were in se- 
cret and apart," is, as regards some of the books now bearing the name, at 
variance with fact. The testimonies of the Fathers harmonize with the be- 
lief that the use of the word as applied to special books originated in the claim, 
common to nearly all the sects that participated in the Gnostic character, to 
a secret esoteric knowledge, deposited in books which were made known only 
to the initiated. It seems not unlikely that there is a reference in Col. ii. 
13 to the pretensions of such teachers. The books of our own Apocrypha 
bear witness both to the feeling and the way in which it worked. The in- 
spiration of the Pseudo-Esdras (2 Esdr. xiv. 40-47) leads him to dictate 204 
books, of which the last 70 are to be " delivered only to such as are wise 
among the people. " It was almost a matter of course that these secret books 
should be pseudonymous, ascribed to the great names in Jewish or heathen 
history that had become associated with the reputation of a mysterious wis- 
dom. So books in the existing Apocrypha bear the names of Solomon, Dan- 
iel, Jeremiah, Ezra. These books represent the period of transition and de- 
cay which followed on the return from Babylon, when the prophets who 
were then the teachers of the people had passed away and the age of scribes 
succeeded. Uncertain as may be the dates of individual books, few, if any, 
can be thrown further back than the commencement of the 3d century P..C. 
The latest, the 2d Book of Esdras, is probably not later than 30 B.C., 2 
Esdr. vii. 28 being a subsequent interpolation. The alterations of the 



4 For an account of the controversy re- 
specting the origin of the Samaritan Penta- 
teuch, see Diet, of Bible, art. Samaritan 
Pentateuch. 



5 BifiXia ATroKpv<pa. 

« Ed. 1539, Preface to Apocrypha 



Sect. II. The Apocrypha. 155 

Jewish character, the different phases which Judaism presented in Palestine 
and Alexandria, the good and the evil which were called forth hy contact 
with idolatry in Egypt, and by the struggle against it in Syria, all these pre- 
sent themselves to the reader of the Apocrypha with greater or less distinct- 
ness. 

The following is a brief account of the separate books: 

§ 6. The First and Second Books of Esdras are called in the Vulgate, and 
in all the earlier editions of the English Bible, the third and fourth books. 
In the Vulgate 1st Esdras means the canonical book of Ezra, and 2d Esdras 
means Nehemiah. 

(i.) First Booh of Esdras. — The first chapter is a transcript of the two 
last chapters of 2 Chr., for the most part verbatim. Chapters iii., iv., and 
v., to the end of v. 6, are the original portions of the book, and the rest is a 
transcript more or less exact of the book of Ezra, with the chapters trans- 
posed and quite otherwise arranged, and a portion of Xehemiah. Hence a 
twofold design in the compiler is discernible : one to introduce and give 
Scriptural sanction to the legend about Zerubbabel ; the other to explain 
the great obscurities of the book of Ezra, in which however he has signally 
failed. The original portion of the book seems to indicate that the writer 
was thoroughly conversant with Hebrew, even if he did not write the book 
in that language. 

(ii.) The Second Book of Esdras was originally called " the Apocalypse 
of Ezra," which is a far more appropriate title. The Greek text, in which 
it was originally written, is lost. The common Latin text, which is follow- 
ed in the English version, contains two important interpolations (Ch. i. ii. ; 
xv. xvi.) which are not found in the Arabic and JEthiopic versions, and 
are separated from the genuine Apocalypse in the best Latin MSS. Both 
of these passages are evidently of Christian origin. The original Apocalypse 
(iii.-xiv.) consists of a series of angelic revelations and visions, in which 
Ezra is instructed in some of the great mysteries of the moral world, and as- 
sured of the final triumph of the righteous. 

§ 7. Tobit. — The scene of this book is placed in Assyria, whither Tobit, 
a, Jew, had been carried as a captive by Shalmaneser. But it must have 
ieen writtten considerably later than the Babylonian captivity, and can not 
be regarded as a true history. It is a didactic narrative ; and its point lies 
in the moral lessons which it conveys, and not in the narrative. In mod- 
ern times the moral excellence of the book has been rated highly, except 
in the heat of controversy. Luther pronounced it, if only a fiction, yet 
"a truly beautiful, wholesome, and profitable fiction, the work of a gifted 
poet. ... A book useful for Christian reading." Nowhere else is there pre- 
served so complete and beautiful a picture of the domestic life of the Jews 
after the Return. 

§ 8. Judith. — This book, like that of Tobit, belongs to the earliest speci- 
mens of historical fiction. The narrative of the reign of " Nebuchadnezzar 
king of Nineveh : ' (i.l), of the campaign of Holofernes, and the deliverance of 
Bethulia, through the stratagem and courage of the Jewish heroine, contains 
too many and too serious difficulties, both historical and geographical, to 
alloAv of the supposition that it is either literally true, or even carefully 
moulded on truth. But the value of the book is not lessened by its fictitious 
character. On the contrary it becomes even more valuable as exhibiting 
an ideal type of heroism, which was outwardly embodied in the wars of in- 



156 The Jewish Scriptures, Appendix. 

dependence. The self-sacrificing faith and unscrupulous bravery of Judith 
were the qualities by which the champions of Jewish freedom were then en- 
abled to overcome the power of Syria, which seemed at the time scarcely 
less formidable than the imaginary hosts of Holofernes. The peculiar char- 
acter of the book, which is exhibited in these traits, affords the best indication 
of its date ; for it can not be wrong to refer its origin to the Maccabasan pe- 
riod, which it reflects not only in its general spirit but even in smaller traits. 

§ 9. Esther. — The additions to the book of Esther have been spoken cf 
in the " Old Testament History." 7 

§ 10. The Wisdom of Solomon. — This book may be divided into two 
parts, the first (cc. i.-ix.) containing the doctrine of Wisdom in its moi*al 
and intellectual aspects ; the second, the doctrine of Wisdom as shown in 
history (cc. x.-xix.). The first part contains the praise of Wisdom as 
the source of immortality, in contrast with the teaching of sensualists ; and 
next the praise of Wisdom as the guide of practical and intellectual life, 
the stay of princes, and the interpreter of the universe. The second part, 
again, follows the action of Wisdom summarily, as preserving God's serv- 
ants, from Adam to Moses, and more particularly in the punishment of the 
Egyptians and Canaanites (xi. 5-16 ; xi. 17-xii.). From internal evidence 
it seems most reasonable to believe that the book was composed at Alex- 
andria some time before the time of Philo (about 120-80 B.C.). 

§ 11. The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus . — The 
former is the title of this book in the Septuagint, the latter in the Vulgate, 
the name " Ecclesiasticus" indicating that the book was publicly used in 
the service of the Church. Of its author, Jesus (■£. e., Jeshua or Joshua), 
the son of Sirach, " of Jerusalem," we know absolutely nothing; but his 
Palestinian origin is substantiated by internal evidence. The language in 
which the book was originally composed was Hebrew, that is, probably, the 
vernacular Aramaean dialect. It was translated into Greek by the grand- 
son of the author, in Egypt "in the reign of Euergetes," for the instruc- 
tion of those "in a strange country (lv Trapoacia') who were previously pre- 
pared to live after the law." It is an important monument of the religious 
state of the Jews at the period of its composition. As an expression of 
Palestinian theology it stands alone; for there is no sufficient reason for 
assuming Alexandrine interpolations or direct Alexandrine influence. The 
conception of God as Creator, Preserver, and Governor, is strictly conforma- 
ble to the old Mosaic type ; but at the same time his mercy is extended to 
all mankind. Little stress is laid upon the spirit-world, either good or 
evil ; and the doctrine of a resurrection fades away. In addition to the 
general hope of restoration, one trait only of a Messianic faith is preserved, 
in which the writer contemplates the future work of Elias. The ethical 
precepts are addressed to the middle class. The praise of agriculture and 
medicine, and the constant exhortations to cheerfulness, seem to speak of a 
time when men's thoughts were turned inward with feelings of desponden- 
cy and perhaps of fatalism. At least the book marks the growth of that 
anxious legalism which was conspicuous in the sayings of the later doctors. 
Life is already imprisoned in rules : religion is degenerating into ritualism; 
knowledge has taken refuge in schools. 

§ 12. Baruch. — This book is remarkable as the only one in the Apocry- 

» See p. 571- 



Sect. II. The Apocrypha. 157 

pha which is formed on the model of the Prophets ; and though it is want- 
ing in originality, it presents a vivid reflection of the ancient prophetic 
fire. The assumed author is undoubtedly the companion of Jeremiah, but 
the details of the book are inconsistent with the assumption. It exhibits 
not only historical inaccuracies, but also evident traces of a later date than 
the beginning of the captivity. The date of its composition is probably 
about the time of the war of liberation (b.c. 160), or somewhat earlier. 

§ 13. The Song of the Three Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Drag on^ 
are additions to the canonical book of Daniel, and are spoken of in the 
" Old Testament History." 8 

§ 14. The Prayer of Manasses, king of Judah. — The repentance and 
restoration of Manasseh a furnished the subject of many legendary stories. 
" His prayer unto his God'' was still preserved " in the book of the kings 
of Israel " when the Chronicles were compiled, 10 and, after this record was 
lost, the subject was likely to attract the notice of later writers. " The 
Prayer " in the Apocrypha is the work of one who has endeavored to ex- 
press, not without true feeling, the thoughts of the repentant king. The 
writer was well acquainted with the LXX. ; but beyond this there is nothing 
to determine the date at which he lived. The clear teaching on repentance 
points to a time certainly not long before the Christian era. There is no 
indication of the place at which the Prayer was written. 

§ 15. The First and Second Boohs of Maccabees. — (i.) The First Book of 
Maccabees contains a history of the patriotic struggle, from the first resist- 
ance of Mattathias, to the settled sovereignty and death of Simon, a period 
of thirty-three years (b.c. 1G8-135). The opening chapter gives a short 
summary of the conquests of Alexander the Great, and describes at greater 
length the oppression of Antiochus Epiphanes. The great subject of the 
book begins with the enumeration of the Maccabasan family (ii. 1-5), which is 
followed by an account of the part which the aged Mattathias took in 
rousing and guiding the spirit of his countrymen (ii. 6-70). The remain- 
der of the narrative is occupied with the exploits of his five sons. Each of 
the thi-ee divisions, into which the main portion of the book thus naturally 
falls, is stamped with an individual character derived from its special 
hero. The great marks of trustworthiness are everywhere conspicuous. 
Victory and failure and despondency are, on the whole, chronicled with 
the same candoi'. There is no attempt to bring into open display the working 
of Providence. The testimony of antiquity leaves no doubt but that the book 
was first written in Hebrew. Its whole structure points to Palestine as the 
place of its composition. There is, however, considerable doubt as to its 
date. Perhaps Ave may place it between b.c. 120-100. The date and 
person of the Greek translator are wholly undetermined. 

(ii.) The Second Book of Maccabees. — The history of the Second Book of 
the Maccabees begins some years earlier than that of the First Book, and 
closes with the victory of Judas Maccabasus over Nicanor. It thus em- 
braces a period of twenty years, from b.c. 180 (?) to b.c. 161. For the few 
events noticed during the earlier years it is our chief authority ; during the 
remainder of the time the narrative goes over the same ground as 1 Mace, 
but with very considerable differences. The first two chapters are taken up 
by two letters supposed to be addressed by the Palestinian. to the Alexan< 

8 Sse p. 579. 9 2 Chr. xxxiii. 12 ff. 10 2 (Jhr. xxxiii. 1& 



158 The Jewish /Scriptures. Appendix 

drine Jews, and by a sketch of the author's plan, which prooeeds without 
any perceptible break from the close of the second letter. The main nar. 
rative occupies the remainder of the book. This presents several natural 
divisions, which appear to coincide with the "five books'' of Jason on 
which it was based. The first (c. iii.) contains the history of Heliodorus 
(cir. B.C. 180). The second (iv.-vii.) gives varied details of the beginning 
and course of the great persecution (b.c. 175-167). The third (viii.-x. 9), 
follows the fortunes of Judas to the triumphant restoration of the Temple 
service (b.c. 166, 165). The fourth (x. 10-xiii.) includes the reign of An. 
tiochus Eupator (b.c. 161-162). The fifth (xiv., xv.) records the treachery 
of Alcimus, the mission of Nicanor, and the crowning success of Judas 
(b.c. 162, 161). The writer himself distinctly indicates the source of his 
narrative — " the five books of Jason of Cyrene " (ii. 23), of which he de- 
signed to furnish a short and agreeable epitome for the benefit of those 
who would be deterred from studying the larger work. His own labor, 
which he describes in strong terms (ii. 26, 27 ; comp. xv. 38, 39), was en- 
tirely confined to condensation and selection ; all investigation of detail he 
declares to be the peculiar duty of the original historian. Of Jason him- 
self nothing more is known than may be gleaned from this mention of him. 
The district of Cyrene was most closely united with that of Alexandria. 
In both the predominance of Greek literature and the Greek language was 
absolute. The work of Jason must therefore have been composed in 
Greek ; and the style of the epitome proves beyond doubt that the Greek 
text is the original. It is scarcely less certain that the book was compiled 
at Alexandria. 

The Second Book of Maccabees is not nearly so trustworthy as the First. 
In the Second Book the groundwork of facts is true, but the dress in 
which the facts are presented is due in part at least to the narrator. It is 
not at all improbable that the error with regard to the first campaign of 
Lysias arose from the mode in which it was introduced by Jason as a pre- 
lude to the more important measures of Lysias in the reign of Antiochus 
Eupator. In other places (as very obviously in xiii. 19 ff.) the compiler 
may have disregarded the historical dependence of events, while selecting 
those which were best suited for the support of his theme. The latter half 
of the book (cc. viii.-xv.) is to be regarded, not as a connected and com- 
plete history, but as a series of special incidents from the life of Judas, il- 
lustrating the providential interference of God in behalf of His people, true 
in substance, but embellished in form. 

There are two other books of the Maccabees, entitled the Third and the 
Fourth, not included in the English Apocrypha. The Third Book of the 
Maccabees contains the history of events which preceded the great Macca- 
baean struggle. The Fourth Book of Maccabees contains a rhetorical narra- 
tive of the martyrdom of Eleazar and of the "Maccabaean family," follow- 
ing in the main the same outline as 2 Mace. 



+■ 



Sect. Ill, 



The Synagogues. 



159 



SECTION III. 

NEW FORMS OP WORSHIP — THE SYNAGOGUES. 

? 1. Importance of the subject. § 2. History of the Synagogues. § 3. Their influence, 
§ 4. Structure. § 5. Internal arrangement. § 6. Officers. § 7. Worship. § 8. Judi- 
cial functions. 

§ 1. The word synagogue, 1 which means a " congregation," is used in the 
New Testament to signify a recognized place of worship. A knowledge of 
the history and worship of the synagogues is of importance to the student, 
since they are the great characteristic institution of the later phase of Juda- 
ism. More even than the Temple and its services, in the time of which 
the New Testament treats, they at once represented and determined the 
religious life of the people. We can not separate them from the most in- 
timate connection with our Lord's life and ministry. In them he worship- 
ed in his youth, and in his manhood. Whatever we can learn of the rit- 
ual which then prevailed tells us of a worship which he recognized and 
sanctioned ; which for that reason, if for no other, though, like the state- 
lier services of the Temple, it was destined to pass away, is worthy of our 
respect and honor. They were the scenes, too, of no small portion of his 
work. In them were wrought some of his mightiest works of healing. 2 
In them were spoken some of the most glorious of his recorded words ; 3 
many more, beyond all reckoning, which are not recorded. 4 

§ 2. We know too little of the life of Israel, both before and under the 
monarchy, to be able to say with certainty whether there was any thing at 
all corresponding to the synagogues of later date. They appear to have 
arisen during the exile, in. the abeyance of the Temple worship, and to 
have received their full development on the return of the Jews from cap- 
tivity. The whole history of Ezra presupposes the habit of solemn, proba- 
bly of periodic meetings. 6 The "ancient days" of which St. James 
speaks G may, at least, go back so far. After the Maccabasan struggle for 
independence, we find almost every town or village had its one or more 
synagogues. Where the Jews were not in sufficient numbers to be able to 
erect and fill a building, there was the Proseucha,' 1 or place of prayer, 
sometimes opened, sometimes covered in, commonly by a running stream 
or on the sea-shore, in which devout Jews and proselytes met to worship, 
and, perhaps, to read.* 

§ 3. It is hardly possible to overestimate the influence of the system thus 
developed. To it we may ascribe the tenacity with which, after the Mac- 
cabsean struggle, the Jews adhered to the religion of their fathers, and never 



1 cuvct/ywyfj. 

a Mark i. 23 ; Matt. xii. 9 ; Luke xiii. 11. 

3 Luke iv. 16 ; John vi. 59. 

4 Matt. iv. 23, xiii. 54 ; John xviii. 20, 
etc. 



5 Ezr. viii. 15 ; Neh. viii. 2, ix. 1 ; Zech, 
vii. 5. 

6 Acts xv. 21. 

e Acts xvi. 13 ; Juven. Sat. iii. 296. 



160 New Forms of Worship. Appendix 

again relapsed into idolatry. The people were now in no danger of for- 
getting the Law, and the external ordinances that hedged it round. If 
pilgrimages were still made to Jerusalem at the great feasts, the habitual 
religion of the Jews in, and yet more out of Palestine, was connected much 
more intimately with the synagogue than with the Temple. Its simple 
edifying devotion, into which mind and heart could alike enter, attracted 
the heathen proselytes who might have been repelled by the sacrifices of the 
Temple, or would certainly have been driven from it unless they could 
make up their minds to submit to circumcision. 9 Here too there was an 
influence tending to diminish, and ultimately almost to destroy, the au- 
thority of the hereditary priesthood. The services of the synagogue re- 
quired no sons of Aaron; gave them nothing more than a complimentary 
precedence. The way was silently prepared for a new and higher order, 
which should rise in " the fullness of time " out of the decay and abolition 
of both the priesthood and the Temple. In another way, too, the syna- 
gogues everywhere prepared the way for that order. Not "Moses" only, 
but "the Prophets" were read in them every Sabbath day, and thus the 
Messianic hopes of Israel, the expectation of a kingdom of Heaven, were 
universally diffused. 

§ 4. The size of a synagogue, like that of a church or chapel, varied with 
the population. We have no reason for believing that there were any fixed 
laws of proportion for its dimensions, like those which are traced in the 
Tabernacle and the Temple. Its position was, however, determinate. It 
stood, if possible, on the highest ground, in or near the city to which it be- 
longed. Failing this, a tall pole rose from the roof to render it conspicu- 
ous. And its direction too was fixed. Jerusalem was the Kibleh of Jew- 
ish devotion ; and the synagogue was so constructed, that the worshipers 
as they entered, and as they prayed, looked toward it. The building was 
commonly erected at the cost of the district, whether by a church-rate 
levied for the purpose, or by free gifts, must remain uncertain. Sometimes 
it was built by a rich Jew, or even, as in Luke vii. 5, by a friendly prose- 
lyte. In the later stages of Eastern Judaism, it was often erected, like the 
mosques of Mahometans, near the tombs of famous Rabbis or holy men. 
When the building was finished, it was set apart, as the Temple had been, 
by a special prayer of dedication. Prom that time it had a consecrated 
character. The common acts of life, eating, drinking, reckoning up ac- 
counts, were forbidden in it. No one was to pass through it as a short cut. 
Even if it ceased to be used, the building was not to be applied to any base 
purpose — might not be turned, e. g. into a bath, a laundry, or a tannery* 

§ 5. In the internal arrangement of the synagogue we trace an obvious 
analogy to the type of the Tabernacle. At the upper or Jerusalem end 
stood the Ark, the chest which, like the older and more sacred Ark, con- 
tained the Book of the Law. This part of the synagogue was naturally 
the place of honor. Here were the "chief seats," after which Pharisees 
and Scribes strove so eagerly, 10 to which the wealthy and honored worship- 
er was invited. 11 Here, too, in front of the Ark, still reproducing the type 
of the Tabernacle, was the eight-branched lamp, lighted only on the great- 
er festivals. Besides this, there was one lamp kept burning perpetually. 
Others, brought by devout worshipers, were lighted at the beginning of the 

» Acts xxi. 28. io Matt, xxiii. G. » James it 2. 3 



Sect. III. 



The Synagogues. 



161 



Sabbath, i. e, } on Friday evening. A little farther toward the middle of 
the building was a raised platform, on ,which several persons could stand 
at once, and in the middle of this rose a pulpit, in which the Reader stood 
to read the lesson or sat down to teach. The congregation were divided, 
men on one side, women on the other, a low partition, five or six feet high, 
running between them. The arrangements of modern synagogues, for 
many centuries, have made the separation more complete by placing the 
women in low side-galleries, screened off by lattice-work. Within the 
Ark, as above stated, were the rolls of the sacred books. The rollers round 
which they were wound were often elaborately decorated, the cases for them 
embroidered or enameled, according to their material. Such cases were 
customary offerings from the rich when they brought their infant children, 
on the first anniversary of their birthday, to be blessed by the Eabbi of the 
synagogue. 12 As part of the fittings we have also to note (1.) another 
chest for the Haphtaroth, or rolls of the prophets. (2.) Alms-boxes at or 
near the door, after the pattern of those at the Temple, one for the poor 
of Jerusalem, the other for local charities. 13 (3.) Notice-boards, on which 
were written the names of offenders who had been " put out of the syna- 
gogue." (4.) A chest for trumpets and other musical instruments, used 
at the New Years, Sabbaths, and other festivals. 

§ 6. In smaller towns there was often but one Eabbi. Where a fuller 
organization was possible, there was a college of Elders, 34 presided over by 
one who was the rule?- of the synagogue. 1 * To these elders belonged a varie- 
ty of synonyms, each with a special significance. They were shepherds 10 
watching over their flock, presidents, as ruling over it. 17 With their head, 
they formed a kind of Chapter, managed the affairs of the synagogue, and 
possessed the power of excommunicating. 

The most prominent functionary in a large synagogue was known as the 
Sheliach ( — legatus), the officiating minister who acted as the delegate of the 
congregation, and was therefore the chief reader of prayers, etc., in their 
name. The conditions laid down for this office remind us of St. Eaul's 
rule for the choice of a bishop. He was to be active, of full age, the father 
of a family, not rich or engaged in business, possessing a good voice, apt 
to teach. 18 In him w T e find, as the name might lead us to expect, the pro- 
totype of the "angel of the Church" of Eev. i. 20, ii. 1, etc. 

The Chazzdn, or servant of the synagogue, 19 had duties of a lower kind 
resembling those of the Christian deacon, or sub-deacon. He was to open 
the door, to get the building ready for service. For him, too, there were 
conditions like those for the legatus. Like the legatus and the elders, he 
was appointed by the imposition of hands. Practically he often acted 
during the week as school-master of the town or village, and in this way 
came to gain a prominence -which placed him nearly on the same level as 
the legatus. 



12 The custom, it may be noticed, con- 
nects itself with the memorable history of 
those who " brought young children " to Je- 
sus that he should touch them (Mark x. 13). 

1 3 If this practice existed, as is probable, 
in the first century, it throws light upon the 
special stress laid by St. Paul on the collec- 
tion for the " poor saints " in Jerusalem (1 
Cor. xvi. etc.). The Christian Churches 
were not to be behind the Jewish Syna- 



gogues in their contributions to the Pales- 
tine Relief Fund. 

:4 Trpe<r/3vTepcH, Luke vii. 3. 

15 Luke viii. 41, 49, xiii. 14; Acts xviii 
8,17. 

16 Eph. iv. 11. 

iU Tim. v. IT; Heb. xii.7. 

is Comp. 1 Tim. iii. 1-7; Tit. L 6-9. 

is Luke iv. 20. 



162 New Forms of Worship. Appendix. 

Besides these, there were ten men attached to every synagogue, whose 
functions have been the subject-matter of voluminous controversy. They 
were known as the Batlanim (=Otiosi), and no synagogue was complete 
without them. They were to be men of leisure, not obliged to labor for 
their livelihood, able, therefore, to attend the week-day as well as the Sab- 
bath services. They were, probably, simply a body of men permanently 
on duty, making up a congregation (ten being the minimum number), so 
that there might be no delay in beginning the service at the proper hours, 
and that no single worshiper might go away disappointed. 

It will be seen at once how closely the organization of the synagogue 
was reproduced in that of the Christian Ecclesia. Here, also, there was 
the single presbyter-bishop in small towns, a council of presbyters under 
one head in large cities. The legatus of the synagogue appears in t'he 
ayyi\oQ,'° perhaps also in the clttogtoKoq, of the Christian Church. To the 
elders as such is given the name of Shepherds. 21 They are known also as 
iiyovjjLEvoi^ Even the transfer to the Christian proselytes of the once dis- 
tinctively sacerdotal name of ieptvg, foreign as i't was to the feelings of the 
Christians of the Apostolic Age, was not Avithout its parallel in the history 
of the synagogue. Sceva, the exorcist Jew of Ephesus, was probably a 
"chief priest " in this sense. 23 

§ 7. The ritual of the synagogue was to a large extent the reproduction 
(here also, as with the fabric, with many inevitable changes) of the statelier 
liturgy of the Temple. It will be enough, in this place, to notice in what 
way the ritual, no less than the organization, was connected with the facts 
of the New Testament history, and with the life and order of the Christian 
Church. Here, too, we meet with multiplied coincidences. It would 
hardly be an exaggeration to say, that the worship of the Church was 
identic-al with that of the synagogue, modified (1) by the new truths, (2) 
by the new institution of the Supper of the Lord, (3) by the spiritual 
Charismata. 

From the synagogue came the use of fixed forms of prayer. To that 
the first disciples had been accustomed from their youth. They had asked 
their Master to give them a distinctive one, and he had complied with 
their request, 24 as the Baptist had done before for his disciples, as every 
Rabbi did for his. The forms might be, and were, abused ; but for the 
disciples this was, as yet, the true pattern of devotion, and their Master 
sanctioned it. To their minds there would seem nothing inconsistent with 
true heart worship in the recurrence of a fixed order, 25 of the same prayers, 
hymns, doxologies, such as all liturgical study leads us to think of as exist- 
ing in the Apostolic Age. 

The large admixture of a didactic element in Christian worship, that by 
which it was distinguished from all Gentile forms of adoration, was derived 
from the older order. "Moses" was "read in the synagogues every 
Sabbath-day," 26 the whole Law being read consecutively, so as to be com- 
pleted, according to one cycle, in three years, or according to that which 
ultimately prevailed, and determined the existing divisions of the Hebrew 
text, in the 52 weeks of a single year. The writings of the Prophets were 
read as second lessons in a corresponding order. They were followed by 

20 Rev. I. 20, ii. 1. , 23 Acts xix. 14. 24 Luke xi. 1. 

21 Eph. iv. 11 ; 1 Pet. v. 1. 25 Kara -rafiv, 1 Cor. xiv. 40. 
« lleb. xiiL 7. I 26 Acta xv. 21. 



Sect. III. 



The Synagogues. 



168 



the Derash, "the word of exhortation," 27 the exposition, the sermon of 
the synagogue. The first Christian synagogues, we must believe, followed 
this order with hut little deviation. It remained for them before long 
to add "the other Scriptures," which they had learned to recognize as 
more precious even than the Law itself, the " prophetic word " of the New 
Testament. The synagogue use of Psalms again, on the plan of selecting 
those which had a special fitness for special times, answered to that which 
appears to have prevailed in the Church of the first three centuries. 

The conformity extends also to the times of prayer. In the hours of 
service this was obviously the case. The third, sixth, and ninth hours 
were, in the times of the New Testament, 28 and had been probably for 
some time before, 29 the fixed times of devotion. The same hours, it is well 
known, were recognized in the Church of the second, probably in that of 
the first century also. 30 The sacred days belonging to the two systems 
seem, at first, to present a contrast rather than a resemblance ; but here 
too there is a symmetry which points to an original connection. The 
solemn days of the synagogue were the second, the fifth, and the seventh, 
the last or Sabbath being the conclusion of the whole. In whatever way 
the change was brought about, the transfer of the sanctity of the Sabbath 
to the Lord's Day involved a corresponding change in the order of the 
week, and the first, the fourth, and the sixth became to the Christian so- 
ciety what the other days had been to the Jewish. 

§ 8. The language of the New Testament shows that the officers of the 
synagogue exercised in certain cases a judicial power. The synagogue it- 
self was the place of trial; 31 even, strange as it may seem, of the actual 
punishment of scourging. 32 They do not appear to have had the right of 
inflicting any severer penalty, unless, under this head, we may include 
that of excommunication, or "putting a man out of the synagogue," 3 plac- 
ing him under an anathema, 34 "delivering him to Satan." 35 In some 
cases they exercised the right, even outside the limits of Palestine, of seiz- 
ing the persons of the accused, and sending them in chains to take their 
trial before the Supreme Council at Jerusalem/ 6 

It is not quite so easy, however, to define the nature of the tribunal, 
and the precise limits of its jurisdiction. In two of the passages referred 
to 37 they are carefully distinguished from the Councils, yet both appear as 
instruments by which the spirit of religious persecution might fasten on 
its victims. The explanation commonly given, that the council sat in the 
synagogue and was thus identified with it, is hardly satisfactory. It 
seems more probable that the council was the larger tribunal of 23, which 
sat in every city, identical with that of the seven, with two Levites as 
assessors to each, which Josephus describes as acting in the smaller pro- 
vincial towns, 38 and that under the term synagogue we are to understand a 
smaller court, probably that of the ten judges mentioned in the Talmud, 
consisting either of the elders, the chazzdn, and the leyatus, or otherwise of 
the ten Batlanim, or Otiosi. 

Here, also, we trace the outline of a Christian institution. The Church, 

27 Acts xiii. 15. 28 Acts, iii. 1, x. 3, 9. 
29 Ps. lv. IT ; Dan. vi. 10. 
3 ° Clem. Al. Strom. 1. c. ; Tertull De 
Orat. c. xxv. 
3i Luke xii. 11, xxi. 12. 
32 Matt. x. 17 ; Mark xlii. 9. 



33 John xii. 42, xvi. 2. 

34 1 Cor. xvi. 22 ; Gal. i. S, 9. 

35 1 Cor. v. 5; 1 Tim. i. 20. 

36 Acts ix. 2, xxii. 5. 

37 Matt. x. IT ; Mark xiii. 9. 

38 Ant. iv. 8, § 14 ; B. J. ii. 20, § 5. 



164 Sects of the Jews. Appendix. 

either by itself or by appointed delegates, was to act as a Court of Arbitra- 
tion in all disputes among its members. The elders of the Church were 
not, however, to descend to the trivial disputes of daily life. For these, 
any men of common sense and fairness, however destitute of official honor 
and position, would be enough. 39 For the elders, as for those of the syna- 
gogue, were reserved the graver offenses against religion and morals. In 
such cases they had power to excommunicate, to " put out of" the Church, 
which had taken the place of the synagogue, sometimes by their own 
authority, sometimes with the consent of the whole society. 40 

29 1 Cor. vi. 1-8. *o 1 Cor. v. 4. 



SECTION IV. 

SECTS OF THE JEWS. 

* 1. Origin and name of the Jewish sects. The term Heresy. Three chief sects. § 2. I. 
Phabisees — Their name and origin. § 3. Their fundamental doctrines. Belief in an 
Oral Law. § 4. In a future state. § 5. Their proselytizing spirit. § G. II. Saddu- 
cees— Their name and origin. § 7. Their fundamental doctrines. Denial of an 
oral law. § S. Denial of a resurrection of the dead. § 9. Belief in the freedom of the 
will. § 10. Supposed rejection of all Scripture except the Pentateuch. § 11. Their 
disappearance. § 12. III. Essenes— Their name, organization, and doctrines. § 13. 
The Sceiijes. 

§ 1. The division of the Jewish people into religious parties, following 
teachers of different schools of theological opinion, is a phenomenon pe- 
culiar to the age subsequent to the Captivity. In the ritualism of the 
Mosaic law there was scarcely any scope left for opinion, and, at all events, 
we find little if any trace of a tendency to discuss the foundations of the 
Law on the one hand, or to speculate on its developments. The actual 
division was a stern conflict between obedience to the law of God, and the 
open rebellion of idolatry ; between prophets truly inspired by Jehovah, and 
those who spoke falsely in his name ; between the fidelity of religious pa- 
triotism, and the parties that were ever for leaning to Egypt and Assyria. 

The cessation of idolatry, and the more thoughtful and spiritual charac- 
ter which the Jewish religion assumed after the Captivity, gave freer scope 
to the speculative element. The contact with foreign modes of thought 
must also have had no small influence ; but still it is one of the obscurest 
parts of this difficult subject, to trace back any specific tenets of the dif- 
ferent parties, that were formed during the Asmonaean period, to oriental 
ideas imbibed during the Captivity, on the one hand, or to Hellenistic phi- 
losophy on the other. Especially must we be careful not to confound the 
"opposition party" in theology — the Sadducees — with the unpatriotic Hel- 
lenizers, who were hateful alike to all who had any regard to the law of 
Moses and the worship of Jehovah. 

In one point, at least, there was a resemblance between the religious par- 
ies of the Jews and the philosophic schools of the Greeks : the name used 



Sect. IV. The Pharisees. 165 

to denote the latter was applied to the former. That name is the Greek 
word, of which the English form is heresy ; x but the English translation, in 
the indifferent sense now referred to, is borrowed from the Latin sect." 2 
Thus we read in the Acts of the Apostles (v. 17), of " the sect (a'iptaie.) 
of the Sadducees," and "the sect of the Pharisees" (xv. 5). When St. 
Paul was charged with being "a ringleader of the sect (heresy) of the Naz- 
arenes," his reply proves that he knew the term to be used in an opprobrious 
sense: — "This I confess unto thee, after the way which they call heresy, so 
worship I the God of my fathers ;" 3 and the Apostle himself, as well as Peter, 
uses the term in that condemnatory sense, in whicli it has passed into ec- 
clesiastical language. 

The chief sects among the Jews were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and 
the Essexes ; who may be described respectively as the Formalists, the 
Free-thinkers, and the Puritans ; but it must be remembered that such brief 
general characteristics are of necessity extremely vague. Of the Herodians, 
who can not properly be called a sect, we have already had occasion to speak. 4 

§ 2. The Pharisees are so called from Perishim, the Aramaic form of 
the Hebrew word Perushim, li separated." The name does not occur either 
in the Old Testament or in the Apocrypha ; but it is usually considered that 
the Pharisees were essentially the same with the Assidaeans (i. e. chasidim 
=godly men, saints) mentioned in the Books of Maccabees. 5 

A knowledge of the opinions and practices of this party at the time of 
Christ is of great importance for entering deeply into the genius of the 
Christian religion. A cursory perusal of the Gospel is sufficient to show 
that Christ's teaching was in some respects thoroughly antagonistic to theirs. 
He denounced them in the bitterest language. 6 Indeed, it is difficult to 
avoid the conclusion, that his repeated denunciations of the Pharisees main- 
ly exasperated them into taking measures for causing his death ; so that in 
one sense he may be said to have shed his blood, and to have laid down his 
life in protesting against their practice and spirit. 7 Hence, to understand 
the Pharisees is, by contrast, an aid toward understanding the spirit of 
uncorrupted -Christianity. 

§ 3. The doctrines of the Pharisees are contained in the Mishna, of which 
an account has been already given. 8 It has been there shown that the fun- 
damental principle of the Pharisees is, that by the side of the written law 
there was an oral laiv to complete and to explain the written law, given to 
Moses on Mount Sinai, and transmitted by him by word of mouth. 

It is not to be supposed that all the traditions which bound the Phari- 
sees were believed to be direct revelations to Moses on Mount Sinai. In 
addition to such revelations, which were not disputed, there were three other 
classes of traditions. 1st. Opinions on disputed points, which were the re- 

1 Ai'peo-t?, literally, choice ; hence, a philo- I 2 The Latin word secta signifies a beaten 
sophic principle, and even a particular '.path ; and its use in this connection is anal- 
course of study. For example, we have not ogous to that of 666? in the N. T., applied 
only a'ipecis s-roiW/ for the Stoic sect, but (in | especially to the Christians, e. g. Acts 



Polybius) ai'peo-tr 'EMnvt/cr/ for the study of 

Greek history. In Acts xxvi. 5, the word is 

evidently used in the abstract for a set of 

principles, though with an implied reference 

to the party which held those principles in 

their grc-atest strictness: "after the most 

straitest sect of our religion (Kara tijv aKpi- j Matt. vii. 1-5, xi. 29, xii. 19, 20 ; Luke vi. 

Seardrnv a'ipeanv Trjr rifxerfpa? tipr)(TKela<:) I i 37-42. 7 See especially Luke xi. 53, 54, 

lived a Pharisee." ■ 8 See p. 151. 



2, " any of the i/w/" (tim? tw 66ov ovraO. 

3 Acts xxiv . 5, 14. Comp. Acts xxviii. 22. 

* See p. 93. 

5 See further on the Assidaeans, p. 35. 

e See Matt. xv. 7, 8, xxiii. 5, 13, 14, 15, 23; 
Mark vii. 6; Luke xi. 42-4i, and" compare 



166 Sects of the Jews. Appendix. 

suit of a majority of votes. 2dly. Decrees made by prophets and wise men 
in different ages, in conformity with a saying attributed to the men of the 
Great Synagogue, "Be deliberate in judgment ; train up many disciples; 
and make a fence for the law.''' These carried prohibitions farther than the 
written law or oral law of Moses, in order to protect the Jewish people from 
temptations to sin or pollution. 3dly. Legal decisions of proper ecclesias- 
tical authorities on disputed questions. However, although in these several 
ways all the traditions of the Pharisees were not deemed direct revelations 
from Jehovah, there is no doubt that all became invested, more or less, 
with a peculiar sanctity ; so that, regarded collectively, the study of them 
and the observance of them became as imperative as the study and observe 
ance of the precepts in the Bible. 

Viewed as a whole, they treated men like children, formalizing and de- 
fining the minutest particulars of ritual observances. The expressions of 
" bondage," of " weak and beggarly elements," and of " burdens too heavy 
for men to beaiy' faithfully represent the impression produced by their mul- 
tiplicity. An elaborate argument might be advanced for many of them in- 
dividually, but the sting of them consisted in their aggregate number, 
which would have a tendency to quench the fervor and the freshness of a 
spiritual religion. 9 

In order to observe regulations on points of this kind, the Pharisees 
formed a kind of society. A member was called a chdber, and those 
among the middle and lower classes who were not members were called 
" the people of the land," or the vulgar. Each member undertook, in the 
presence of three other members, that he would remain true to the laws of 
the association. The conditions were various. One of transcendent im- 
portance was that a member should refrain from every thing that was not 
tithed. 10 The Mishna says, "He who undertakes to be trusticorthy (a word 
with a technical Pharisaical meaning) tithes whatever he eats, and whatever 
he sells, and whatever he buys, and does not eat and drink with the people of the 
land." This was a point of peculiar delicacy, for the portion of produce re- 
served as tithes for the priests and Levites was holy, and the enjoyment of 
w r hat was holy was a deadly sin. Hence a Pharisee was bound, not only to 
ascertain as a buyer whether the articles which he purchased had been duly 
tithed, but to have the same certainty in regard to what he ate in his OAvn 
house and when taking his meals with others. And thus Christ, in eating 
with publicans and sinners, ran counter to the first principles, and shocked 
the most deeply- rooted prejudices of Pharisaism ; for, independently of oth- 
er obvious considerations, he ate and drank with " the psople of the land," 
and it would have been assumed as undoubted that he partook on such 
occasions of food which had not been duly tithed. 

Perhaps some of the most characteristic laws of the Pharisees related to 
what was clean and unclean. According to the Levitical law, every un- 
clean person was cut off from all religious privileges, and w r as regarded as 
defiling the sanctuary of Jehovah. u On principles precisely similar to those 
of the Levitical laws, 12 it was possible to incur these awful religious penal- 
ties either by eating or by touching what was unclean in the Pharisaical 
sense. One point alone raised an insuperable barrier between the free so- 

9 For illustrative particulars, especially I i° Comp. Matt, xxiii. 23, and Luke xviii 12 
with regard to the observance of the Sabbath, | ll Num. xix. 20. 
ijee the Diet, of (he Bible, vol. iii. p. 824. I :2 Lev. xx. 25, xxii. 4-7, 



Sect. IV. The Pharisees. 167 

cial intercourse of Jews and other nations. This point is, " that any thing 
slaughtered by a heathen should be deemed unfit to be eaten, like the car- 
case of an animal that had died of itself, and like such carcase should pol- 
lute the person who carried it." On the reasonable assumption that under 
such circumstances animals used for food would be killed by Jewish slaugh- 
terers, regulations the most minute are laid down for their guidance. In 
reference, likewise, to touching what is unclean, the Mishna abounds with 
prohibitions and distinctions no less minute ; and by far the greatest por- 
tion of the 6th and last " Order " relates to impurities contracted in this 
manner. Referring to that " Order " for details, it may be observed that to 
any one fresh from the perusal of them, and of others already adverted to, 
the words, " Touch not, taste not, handle not," seem a correct but almost a 
pale summary of their drift and purpose ; 13 and the stern antagonism be- 
comes vividly visible between them and Him who proclaimed boldly that a 
man was defiled not by any thing he ate, but by the bad thoughts of the 
heart alone; 14 and who, even when the guest of a Pharisee, pointedly ab- 
stained from washing his hands before a meal, in order to rebuke the su- 
perstition which attached a moral value to such a ceremonial act. 15 

It is proper to add, that it would be a great mistake to suppose that the 
Pharisees were wealthy and luxurious, much more that they had degener- 
ated into the vices which were imputed to some of the Roman popes and 
cardinals during the 200 years preceding the Reformation. Josephus 
compared the Pharisees to the sect of the Stoics. He says that they lived 
frugally, in no respect giving in to luxury, but that they followed the lead- 
ership of reason in what it had selected and transmitted as a good. 10 With 
this agrees what he states in another passage, that the Pharisees had so 
much weight with the multitude, that if they said any thing against a king 
or a high-priest they were at once believed; 11 for this kind of influence is 
more likely to be obtained by a religious body over the people, through aus- 
terity and self-denial, than through wealth, luxury and self-indulgence. 
Although there would be hypocrites among them, it would be unreasonable 
to charge all the Pharisees as a body with hypocrisy, in the sense wherein 
we at the present day use the word. But at any rate they must be regard- 
ed as having been some of the most intense formalists whom the world has 
ever seen ; and, looking at the average standard of excellence among man- 
kind, it is nearly certain that men whose lives were spent in the ceremo- 
nial observances of the Mishna would cherish feelings of self-complacency 
and spiritual pride not justified by intrinsic moral excellence. The super- 
cilious contempt toward the poor publican, an4 toward the tender peni- 
tent love that bathed Christ's feet with tears, would be the natural result ot 
such a system of life. 

It was alleged against them, on the highest spiritual authority, that thev 
"made the word of God of no effect by their traditions." This would be 
true in the largest sense, from the purest form of religion in the Old Testa- 
ment being almost incompatible with such endless forms ; 18 but it was true 
in another sense, from some of the traditions being decidedly at variance 
with genuine religion. The evasions connected with Corban are well 
known, and others equally striking might be added from the Mishna. 

13 Col. ii. 21. | i 6 Ant. xviii. 1, § 3. " 

** Matt, xv. 11. « Ant.yinl. 10. § 5. 

» See Luke xi. 37-40. ib Mie. vi. 8. 



168 



Sects of the Jews. 



Appendix. 



§ 4. One of the fundamental doctrines of the Pharisees was a belief in a 
future state. They appear to have helieved in a resurrection of the dead, 
eery much in the same sense as the early Christians. This is in accord- 
ance with St. Paul's statement to the chief priests and council, 19 that he 
was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and that he was called in question 
for the hope and resurrection of the dead ; and it is likewise almost im- 
plied in Christ's teaching, which does not insist on the doctrine of a future 
life as any thing new, but assumes it as already adopted by his hearers, ex- 
cept by the Sadducees, although he condemns some unspiritual conceptions 
of its nature as erroneous. 20 " 

§ 5. In reference to the spirit of proselytism among the Pharisees, there 
is indisputable authority for the statement that it prevailed to a very great 
extent at the time of Christ ; 21 and attention is now called to it on account 
of its probable importance in having paved the way for the early diffusion 
of Christianity. Through kidnapping, 22 through leading into captivity by 
military incursions and victorious enemies, 23 through flight, 24 through com- 
merce, 25 and probably through ordinary emigration, Jews at the time of 
Christ had become scattered over the fairest portions of the civilized world. 
On the day of Pentecost, Jews are said to have been assembled with one 
accord in one place at Jerusalem, "from every region under heaven." 
Moreover, the then existing regulations or customs of synagogues afforded 
facilities which do not exist now, either in synagogues or Christian 
Churches, for presenting new views to a congregation.' 6 Under such 
auspices the proselytizing spirit of the Pharisees inevitably stimulated a 
thirst for inquiry, and accustomed the Jews to theological controversies. 
Thus there existed precedents and favoring circumstances for efforts to 
make proselytes, when the greatest of all missionaries, a Jew by race, a 
Pharisee by education, a Greek by language, and a Roman citizen by birth, 
preaching the resurrection of Jesus to those who for the most part already 
believed in the resurrection of the dead, confronted the elaborate ritual- 
system of the written and oral law by a pure spiritual religion ; and thus 
obtained the co-operation of many Jews themselves in breaking down every 
barrier between Jew, Pharisee, Greek, and Roman, and in endeavoring to 
unite all mankind by the brotherhood of a common Christianity. 

§ 6. II. The Sadducees. 27 Although frequently mentioned in the New 
Testament in conjunction with the Pharisees, they do not throw such vivid 
light as their great antagonists on the real significance of Christianity. 
Except on one occasion, when they united with the Pharisees in insidiously 
asking for a sign from heaven, 28 Christ never assailed the Sadducees with 
the same bitter denunciations which he uttered against the Pharisees : and 
they do not, like the Pharisees, seem to have taken active measures for 
causing him to be put to death. In this respect, and in many others, they 
have not been so influential as the Pharisees in the world's history; but 
still they deserve attention, as representing Jewish ideas before the Phari- 



19 Acts xxiii. 6. 

20 Matt. xxii. 30 ; Mark xii. 25; Luke xx 
84-36. 

2i Matt, xxiii. 15. Comp. pp. 14S, 149. 

22 Joel iii. C. 

23 2 K. xvii. C, xviii. 11, xxiv. 15 : Am. 
L 6,9. 



2i Jer. xliii. 4-7. 

25 Joseph. Ant. xx. 2, § 3. 

2( s Acts xvii. 2 ; Luke iv. 16. 

27 Matt. iii. 7, xvi. 1, 6, 11, 12, xxii. 2a 
34 ; Mark xii. IS ; Luke xx. 27 ; Acts iy. 1, 
v. 17, xxxiii. 6, 7, S. 

28 Matt, xvi, 1, 4, 6. 



Sect. IV. The Sadducees. 169 

sees became triumphant, and as illustrating one phase of Jewish thought 
at the time of the promulgation of Christianity. 

The origin of their name is involved in great difficulties. The Hebrew 
word by which they are called in the Mishna is Tsedukim, the plural of 
Tsddok, which undoubtedly means "just," or "righteous," but which is 
never used in the Bible except as a proper name, and in the English Ver- 
sion is always translated "Zadoc.'' 29 The most obvious translation of 
the word, therefore, is to call them Zadoes or Zadokites; and a question 
would then arise as to why they were so called. The ordinary Jewish' 
statement is that they are named from a certain Zadoc, a disciple of that 
Antigonus of Socho, who is mentioned in the Mishna as having received 
the oral law from Simon the Just, the last of the men of the Great Syna- 
gogue ; but it is certain that this statement must be rejected. 30 As re- 
course is had to conjecture, the first point to be considered is whether the 
word is likely to have arisen from the meaning of "righteousness," or 
from the name of an individual. This must be decided in favor of the 
latter alternative, inasmuch as the word Zadok, as we have already seen, 
never occurs in the Bible, except as a proper name ; and then we are led to 
inquire as to who the Zadok of the Sadducees is likely to have been. 
Now, there was one Zadok of transcendent importance, and only one : 
viz., the priest who acted such a prominent part at the time of David, and 
who declared in favor of Solomon, when Abiatliar took the part of Adoni- 
jah as successor to the throne. 31 His line of priests appears to have had 
decided pre-eminence in subsequent history. Thus, in Ezekiel's prophetic 
vision of the future Temple, "the sons of Zadok," and "the priests the 
Levites of the seed of Zadok " arc spoken of with peculiar honor, as those 
who kept the charge of the sanctuary of Jehovah, when the children of 
Israel went astray. 32 Now, as the transition from the expression "sons 
of Zadok," and "priests of the seed of Zadok" to Zadokites is easy and 
obvious, and as in the Acts of the Apostles, v. 17, it is said, " Then the high- 
priest rose, and all they that icere with him, which is the sect of the Sad- 
ducees, and were filled with indignation," it has been conjectured that the 
Sadducees or Zadokites were originally identical with the sons of Zadok, 
and constituted what may be termed a kind of sacerdotal aristocracy. To 
these were afterward attached all who for any reason reckoned themselves 
as belonging to the aristocracy ; such, for example, as the families of the 
high-priests who had obtained consideration under the dynasty of Herod. 
These were for the most part judges, arid individuals of the official and 
governing class. Now, although this view of the Sadducees is only in 
ferential, and mainly conjectural, it certainly explains the name better than 
any other, and elucidates at once in the Acts of the Apostles the otherwise 
obscure statement that the high-priest, and those who were with him, were 
the sect of the Sadducees. ■ ! ■■■ 

§ 7. The leading tenet of the Sadflucees was the negation of the leading 
tenet of their opponents. As the Pharisees asserted, so the Sadducees de- 
nied, that the Israelites were in possession of an Oral Law transmitted to 
them by Moses. In opposition to the Pharisees, they maintained that the 
written law alone was obligatory on the nation, as of divine authority. 

29 2 K. xv. S3 ; 2 Sam. viir. 17 ; 1 Chr. vi. I si 1 K. i. 32-45. 

8, 13, etc. ; Neh. iii. 4, 29, xi. 11. ** Ez. xl, 46, xlii. 19, xliv. 15, xlviii, 

3 See Diet, of the Bible, vol. iii. p. 1081. I 11. 



170 



Sects of the Jews. 



Appendix. 



It must not be assumed that the Sadducees, because they rejected a 
Mosaic Oral Law, rejected likewise all traditions and all decisions in expla. 
nation of passages in the Pentateuch. Although they protested against the 
assertion that such points bad been divinely settled by Moses, they proba- 
bly, in numerous instances, followed practically the same traditions as the 
Pharisees. 

§ 8. The second distinguishing doctrine of the Sadducees, the denial of 
man's resurrection after death, followed in their conceptions as a logical con- 
clusion from their denial that Moses had revealed to the Israelites the Oral 
Law. For on a point so momentous ;is a second life beyond the grave, no 
religious party among the Jews would have deemed themselves bound to 
accept any doctrine as an article of faith, unless it had been proclaimed by 
Moses, their great legislator ; and it is certain that in the written Law of 
the Pentateuch there is a total absence of any assertion by Moses of the 
resurrection of the dead. This fact is presented to Christians in a striking 
manner by the well-known words of the Pentateuch which arc quoted by 
Christ in argument with the Sadducees on this subject. 33 It can not be 
doubted that in such a case Christ would quote to his powerful adversaries 
the most cogent text in the Law ; and yet the text actually quoted does 
not do more than suggest an inference on this great doctrine. It is true 
that in other parts of the Old Testament there are individual passages 
which express a belief in a resurrection, such as in Is. xxvi, 19, Dan. xii. 
2, Job xix. 26, and in some of the Psalms; and it may at first sight be a 
subject of surprise that the Sadducees were not convinced by the authority 
of those passages. But although the Sadducees regarded the books which 
contained these passages as sacred, it is more than doubtful whether any of 
the Jews regarded them as sacred in precisely the same sense as the written 
Law. 

In connection with the disbelief of a resurrection by the Sadducees, it is 
proper to notice the statement 34 that they likewise denied there was "angel 
or spirit." A perplexity arises as to the precise sense in which this denial 
is to be understood. Angels are so distinctly mentioned in the Pentateuch 
and other books of the Old Testament, that it is hard to understand how 
those who acknowledged the Old Testament to have divine authority could 
deny the existence of angels. 35 The two principal explanations which have 
been suggested are either that the Sadducees regarded the angels of the Old 
Testament as transitory, unsubstantial representations of Jehovah, or that 
they disbelieved, not the angels of the Old Testament, but merely the an- 
gelical system which had become developed in the popular belief of the 
Jews after their return from the Babylonian captivity. Either of these ex- 
planations may possibly be correct ; and the first, although there are nu- 
merous texts to which it did not apply, would have received some counte- 
nance from passages wherein the same divine appearance, which at one 
time is called the " angel of Jehovah," is afterward called simply " Jeho- 
vah." ^ 
, § 9. Josephus states that the Sadducees believed in the freedom of the 



33 Ex. iii. 6, 10 ; Mark xii. 26, 27 ; Matt. 
xxii. 81, 32 ; Luke xx. 37. 

3i Acts xxiii. S. 

35 Suo Gen. xvi. 7, xix. 1, xxii. 11, xxviii. 
12 ; Ex. xxiii. 20 ; Num. xxii. 23 ; Tudg 



xiii. IS ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 1C, and other pas- 
sages. 

36 Geo. xvi. 7, 13, xxii. 11, 12, xxxi. 1-, 
1G; Ex. iii. 2, 4; Judy, vi 1-1, 22, xiii. IS, 
22. 



Sect. IV. The Esseues. 171 

will, whie'n the Pharisees denied. Possibly the great stress laid by the 
Sadducees on the freedom of the will may have bad some connection with 
their forming such a large portion of that class from which criminal judges 
were selected. Those Jews who were almost exclusively religious teachers 
would naturally insist on the inability of man to do anything good if God's 
Holy Spirit were taken away from him, 37 and would enlarge on the perils 
which surrounded man from the temptations of Satan and evil angels ot 
spirits. 38 But it is likely that the tendencies of the judicial class would be 
more practical and direct. 

§ 10. Some of the early Christian writers attribute to the Sadducees the 
rejection of all the Sacred Scriptures except the Pentateuch. Such rejection, 
if true, would undoubtedly constitute a most important additional differ, 
ence between the Sadducees and Pharisees. The statement of these Chris- 
tian writers is, however, now generally admitted to have been founded on 
a misconception of the truth, and it seems to have arisen from a confusion 
of the Sadducees with the Samaritans. 

§ 11. An important fact in the history of the Sadducees is their rapid dis- 
appearance from history after thefbst century, and the subsequent predomi= 
nance among the Jews of the opinions of the Pharisees. Two circum- 
stances, indirectly but powerfully, contributed to produce this result: 1st. 
The state of the Jews after the capture of Jerusalem by Titus ; and 2dly. 
The growth of the Christian religion. As to the first point, it is difficult to 
overestimate the consternation and dismay which the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem occasioned in the minds of sincerely religious Jews. In this their hour 
of darkness and anguish, they naturally turned to the consolations and hopes 
of a future state ; and the doctrine of the Sadducees, that there was nothing 
beyond the present life, would have appeared to them cold, heartless, and 
hateful. Again, while they were sunk in the low r est depths of depression, 
a new religion, which they despised as a heresy and a superstition, was 
gradually making its way among the subjects of their detested conquerors, 
the Romans. One of the causes of its success was undoubtedly the vivid 
belief in the resurrection of Jesus, and a consequent resurrection of all man- 
kind, which was accepted by its heathen converts with a passionate ear- 
nestness, of which those who at the present day are familiar from infancy 
with the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead can form only a faint idea. 
To attempt to check the progress of this new religion among the Jews by 
an appeal to the temporary rewards and punishments of the Pentateuch, 
would have been as idle as an endeavor to check an explosive power by or- 
dinary mechanical restraints. Consciously, therefore, or unconsciously, 
many circumstances combined to induce the Jews who were not Pharisees, 
but who resisted the new heresy, to rally round the standard of the Oral 
Law, and to assert that their holy legislator, Moses, had transmitted to his 
faithful people by word of mouth, although not in writing, the revelation of 
'3. future state of rewards and punishments. 

§ 12. III. The Essenes. This sect is represented by Josephus as 
combining the ascetic virtues of the Pythagoreans and Stoics with a spirit- 
ual knowledge of the Divine Law. The origin of their name is quite un- 
certain, and the various dei'ivations that have been proposed for it are all 
more or less open to objection. 

« Pe. li. 11, 12. 38 i C hr. xxi. 1 ; Tot. iii. 17. 



172 /Sects of the Jews. Appendix 

Their obscurity as a distinct body arises from the fact that they repre- 
sented originally a tendency rather than an organization. The communi- 
ties which were formed out of them were a result of their practice, and no* 
a necessary part of it. As a sect they were distinguished by an aspiration 
after ideal purity rather than by any special code of doctrines ; and like the 
Chasidim of earlier times, they were confounded in the popular estimation 
with the great body of the zealous observers of the Law (Pharisees). The 
growth of Essenism was a natural result of the religious feeling which was 
called out by the circumstances of the Greek dominion ; and it is easy to 
trace the process by which it was matured. From the Maccabaean age there 
was a continuous effort among the stricter Jews to attain an absolute stand- 
ard of holiness. Each class of devotees was looked upon as practically im- 
pure by their successors, who carried the laws of purity still further ; and the 
Essenes stand at the extreme limit of the mystic ascetism which was thus 
gradually reduced to shape. The associations of the " Scribes and Phari- 
sees," " the companions, the wise" gave place to others bound by a more 
rigid rule ; and the rule of the Essenes was made gradually stricter. Ju- 
das, the earliest Essene who is mentioned (ab. 110 B.C.), appears living in 
ordinary society. 39 But by a natural impulse, the Essenes withdrew from 
the dangers and distractions of business. From the cities they retired to 
the wilderness, to realize the conceptions of religion which they formed, 
but still they remained on the whole true to their ancient faith. To the 
Pharisees they stood nearly in the same relation as that in which the Phar- 
isees themselves stood with regard to the mass of the people. The differ- 
ences lay mainly in rigor of practice, and not in articles of belief. 

The traces of the existence of Essenes in common society are not want- 
ing, nor confined to individual cases. Not only was a gate at Jerusalem 
named from them, 40 but a later tradition mentions the existence of a con- 
gregation there which devoted "one-third of the day to study, one-third to 
prayer, and one-third to labor." Those, again, whom Josephus speaks of as 
allowing marriage, may be supposed to have belonged to such bodies as had 
not yet withdrawn from intercourse with their fellow-men. But the prac- 
tice of the extreme section Avas afterward regarded as characteristic of the 
whole class, and the isolated communities of Essenes furnished the type 
which is preserved in the popular descriptions. These were regulated by 
strict rules, analogous to those of the monastic institutions of a later date. 
The candidate for admission first passed through a year's novitiate, in 
which he received, as symbolic gifts, an axe. an apron, and a white robe, 
and gave proof of his temperance by observing the ascetic rules of the 
order. At the close of this probation, his character was submitted to a 
fresh trial of two years, and meanwhile he shared in the lustral rites of the 
initiated, but not in their meals. The full membership was imparted at 
the end of this second period, when the novice bound himself by " awful 
oaths" — though oaths were absolutely forbidden at all other times — to ob- 
serve piety, justice, obedience, honesty, and secrecy, "preserving alike the 
books of their sect, and the names of the angels.''''* 1 

The order itself was regulated by an internal jurisdiction. Excommu- 
nication was equivalent to a slow death, since an Essene could not take 

59 Joseph. B. J. i. 3, § 5. 40 Joseph. B. J, v. 4, § 2, 'E<T<rt)vwv nv\n. 

4i Joseph. 11 J. ii. 8, § 7. 



Sect. IV. The Scribes. 173 

food prepared by strangers for fear of pollution. All things were held in 
common, without distinction of property or house ; and special provision 
was made for the relief of the poor. Self-denial, temperance, and labor — 
especially agriculture — were the marks of the outward life of the Essenes; 
purity and divine communion the objects of their aspiration. Slavery, 
war, and commerce were alike forbidden ; and, according to Philo, their 
conduct generally was directed by three rules, "the love of God, the love 
of virtue, and the love of man." 

The number of the Essenes is roughly estimated by riiilo at 4000, and 
Josephus says that there were " more than 4000 " who observed their rule. 42 
Their best known settlements were on the N.W. shore of the Dead Sea, 
but others lived in scattered communities throughout Palestine, and per- 
haps, also, in cities. 

§ 13. The Scribes, though not a sect of the Jews, may be conveniently 
treated of in this place on account of their intimate connection with the 
Pharisees. The words " Scribes " and "Pharisees " are bound together in 
the Gospels by the closest possible alliance. 4 ' The Scribes, who were origi- 
nally the secretaries of the king, became in course of time a learned class, 
students and interpreters of the law. The seventy years of the Captivity gave 
a fresh glory to the name. The exiles would be anxious above all things 
to preserve the sacred books, the laws, the hymns, the prophecies of the 
past. To know what was worth preserving, to transcribe the older Hebrew 
documents accurately, when the spoken language of the people was pass- 
ing into Aramaic, to explain what was hard and obscure — this was what 
the necessities of the time demanded. The man who met them became 
emphatically "Ezra the Scribe,"' the priestly functions falling into the 
background, as the priestly order itself did before the Scribes as a class. 
The words of Ezr. vii. 10 describe the high ideal of the new office. The 
Scribe is "to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach in Israel 
statutes and judgments." Of the time that followed we have but scanty 
records. The Scribes' office apparently became more and more prominent. 
They appear as a distinct class, " the families of the Scribes," with a local 
habitation. 44 They compile, as in the two Books of Chronicles, excerpta 
and epitomes of larger histories. 43 It is characteristic of the Scribes of this 
period that, with the exception of Ezra and Zadok, 40 we have no record of 
their names. A later age honored them collectively as the men of the 
Great Synagogue. Never, perhaps, was so important a work done so silent- 
ly. They devoted themselves to the careful study of the text, and laid 
down rules for transcribing it with the most scrupulous precision. A say- 
ing is ascribed to Simon the Just (b.c. 300-290), the last of the succession 
of the men of the Great Synagogue, which embodies the principle on which 
they acted, and enables us to trace the growth of their system. " Our fa- 
thers have taught us," he said, " three things : to be cautious in judging, to 
train many scholars, and to set a fence about the Law." They wished to 
make the Law of Moses the rule of life for the whole nation and for indi- 
vidual men. But it lies in the nature of every such law, of every informal, 
half-systematic code, that it raises questions which it does not solve. The 
Jewish teacher could recognize no principles beyond the precepts of the 

42 Ant. xviii. 2, § 5. I « 1 Chr. xxix. 20 ; 2 Chr. ix. 23. 

43 Matt, xxiii. passim ; Luke v. 30. « jjeh. xvii. 13. 

44 1 Chr. ii. 55. I 



174 The Scribes. Appendix. 

Law. The result showed that, in this as in other instances, the idolatry 
of the letter was destructive of the very reverence in which it had origi- 
nated. Decisions on fresh questions were accumulated into a complex sys- 
tem of casuistry. The new precepts, still transmitted orally, came prac- 
tically to take their place. The " Words of the Scribes," now used as a 
technical phrase for these decisions, were honored above the Law. It was 
a greater crime to offend against them than against the Law. They wen: 
as wine, while the precepts of the Law were as water. The first step was 
taken toward annulling the commandments of God for the sake of their 
own traditions. The casuistry became at once subtle and prurient, evading 
the plainest duties, tampering with conscience. 47 The right relation of 
moral and ceremonial laws was not only forgotten, but absolutely inverted. 
This was the result of the profound reverence for the letter which gave 
no heed to the "word abiding in them." 48 

The teaching of the Scribes was naturally opposed to the opinions of the 
Sadducees. The leading tenet of the Sadducees tended, by maintaining 
the sufficiency of the letter of the Law, 49 to destroy the very occupation of 
a Scribe ; and the class, as such, belonged to the party of its opponents. 
There were, however, within the party of the Pharisees, within the order of 
the Scribes, two schools with distinctly opposed tendencies, one vehemently, 
rigidly orthodox, the other orthodox also, but with an orthodoxy which, in 
the language of modern politics, might be classed as Liberal Conservative. 
The latter party was founded by Hillel (born about B.C. 112), while the 
strictly orthodox party was represented by his contemporary, Shammai. 
The two were held in nearly equal honor. One, in Jewish language, was 
the Nasi, the other the Ab-beth-din of the Sanhedrim. They did not teach, 
however, as their predecessors had done, in entire harmony with each oth- 
er. The points on Avhich they differed were almost innumerable. In most 
of them, questions as to the causes and degrees of uncleanness, as to the 
law of contracts or of wills, we can find little or no interest. On the for- 
mer class of subjects the school of Shammai represented the extremest de- 
velopment of the Pharisaic spirit. The teaching of Hillel showed some 
capacity for wider thoughts. He was the first to lay down principles for 
an equitable construction of the Law with a dialectic precision which seems 
almost to imply a Greek culture. The genial character of the man comes 
out in some of his sayings, which remind us of the tone of Jesus the son 
of Sirach, and present some faint approximations to a higher teaching. 
The contrast showed itself in the conduct of the followers not less than in 
the teachers. The disciples of Shammai were conspicuous for their fierce- 
ness, appealed to popular passions, and used the sword to decide their con- 
troversies. Out of that school grew the party of the Zealots, fierce, fanat- 
ical, vindictive, the Orangemen of Pharisaism. Those of Hillel were like 
their master, cautious, gentle, tolerant, unwilling to make enemies, con- 
tent to let things take their course. One sought to impose upon the pros-* 
elyte from heathenism the full burden of the Law, the other that he should 
be treated with some sympathy and indulgence. The teaching of our 
Lord must have appeared to men different in many ways from both. 
While the Scribes repeated the traditions of the elders, He "spake as one 

47 Matt xv. 1-G ; xxiii. 1G-23. 48 John v. 38. Their teaching is contained in the 
Talmud. See above, p. 151. « 9 Sec p. 169. 



Sect. IV. The Scribes. 175 

having authority," " not as the Scribes." 50 While they confined their teach, 
ing to the class of scholars, He "had compassion on the multitudes." 5 ' 
While they were to be found only in the council or in their schools, He 
journeyed through the cities and villages. 52 While they spoke of the king- 
dom of God vaguely, as a thing far off, He proclaimed that it had already 
come nigh to men. 53 But in most of the points at issue between the two 
parties, He must have appeared in direct antagonism to the school of Sham- 
mai, in sympathy with that of Hillel. So far, on the other hand, as the 
temper of the Hillel school was one of mere adaptation to the feeling of the 
people, cleaving to tradition, wanting in the intuition of a higher life, the 
teaching of Christ must have been felt as unsparingly condemning it. It 
adds to the interest of this inquiry to remember that Hillel himself lived, 
according to the tradition of the Rabbis, to the great age of 120, and may 
therefore have been present among the doctors of Luke ii. 46. Gamaliel, 
his grandson and successor, 54 was at the head of this school during the 
whole of the ministry of Christ, as well as in the early portion of the his- 
tory of the Acts. We are thus able to explain the fact, which so many pas- 
sages in the Gospels lead us to infer, — the existence all along of a party 
among the Scribes themselves, more or less disposed to recognize Jesus of 
Nazareth as a teacher, 55 not far from the kingdom of God, 56 advocates of a 
policy of toleration ; 57 but, on the other hand, timid and time-serving, un- 
able to confess even their half-belief, 5-8 afraid to take their stand against the 
strange alliance of extremes which brought together the Sadducean section 
of the priesthood and the ultra-Pharisaic party. When the last great cri- 
sis came, they apparently contented themselves with a policy of absence. 50 

The special training for a Scribe's office began, probably, about the age 
of thirteen. The boy who was destined by his parents to the calling of a 
Scribe, went to Jerusalem, and applied for admission to the school of 
some famous Rabbi. The master and his scholars met; the former sitting 
on a high chair, the elder pupils on a lower bench, the younger on the 
ground, both literally " at his feet." The education was chiefly catechet- 
ical, the pupil submitting cases and asking questions, the teacher examining 
the pupil. 00 After a sufficient period of training, probably at the age of 
thirty, the probationer was solemnly admitted to his office. 

There still remained for the disciple, after his admission, the choice of a 
variety of functions, the chances of failure and success. He might give 
himself to any one of the branches of study, or combine two or more of 
them. He might rise to high places, become a doctor of the law, an arbi- 
trator in family litigations, 61 the head of a school, a member of the Sanhe- 
drim. He might have to content himself with the humbler work of a tran- 
scriber, copying the Law and the Prophets for the use of synagogues, or a 
notary writing out contracts of sale, covenants of espousals, bills of repudi- 
ation. The position of the more fortunate was of course attractive enough. 
In our Lord's time the passion for distinction was insatiable. The ascend- 
ing scale of Rab, Rabbi, Rabban, presented so many steps on the ladder of 
ambition. Other forms of worldliness were not far off*. The salutations 

Matt. vii. 29 : comp. the eonstantly re- came between them, but apparently for a 



tiurring "I say unto you. 
si Matt. ix. 36. 

52 Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35, etc., etc. 

53 Matt. iv. IT. 

5i Rabbi Simeon, the father of Gamaliel, 



short time only. 

55 John iii. 1 ; Mark x. 17. 

56 Mark xii. 34. 57 John vii. 51. 

5S John xii. 42 ^ Luke xxiii. 50, 51 

so Luke iL 43. 61 Luke xii. 14. 



176 The Scribes. Appendix. 

in the market-place, 62 the reverential kiss offered by the scholars to their 
master, or by Rabbis to each other, the greeting of Abba, father, 63 the long 
robes with the broad, blue fringe (the Kpcunrtdov of Matt, xxiii. 5), all 
these go to make up the picture of a Scribe's life. Drawing to themselves, 
as they did, nearly all the energy and thought of Judaism, the close hered- 
itary caste of the priesthood was powerless to compete with them. Unless 
the priest became a Scribe also, he remained in obscurity. The order, as 
such, became contemptible and base. For the Scribes there were the best 
places at feasts, the chief seats in synagogues. 64 

63 Matt, xxiii. 7. « 3 Matt, xxiii. 9. «* Matt xxiii. C ; Luke xW. fc. 




Bethlehem. 



BOOK IT. 

THE HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST; OR, THE REVELATION 
OF THE GOSPEL. 



CHAPTER VI. 

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF JOHN AND JESUS. B.C. 5-A.D. 26. 

§ 1. Beginning of the Gospel History according to the Four Evangelists. 
§ 2. St. John's doctrine of the World. The eternal purpose of Re- 
demption, and its revelation in God manifest in the flesh. § 3. St. 
Luke's beginning of the History. Zacharias and Elisabeth. Mary 
and Joseph. The births of John and Jesus announced by the angel 
Gabriel. Salutation of Mary by Elisabeth. § 4. Birth and youth of 
John the Baptist. Prophecy of Zacharias. § 5. The angel appears to 
Joseph. The Miraculous Conception. § 6. Joseph and Mary go to 
Bethlehem. Birth of Jesus Christ. Adoration of the Shepherds. 
§ 7. The Circumcision and Presentation in the Temple. Simeon and 
Anna. § 8. Adoration of the Magi. Massacre of Bethlehem. Flight 
to Egypt. Death of Herod and accession of Archelaus. Return of the 
H 2 



178 History of Jesus Christ. Chap. VI. 

Holy Family to Nazareth. § 9. Jesus in the Temple at the Passover 
at the age of twelve. § 10. His abode at Nazareth till his thirtieth 
year. His outer and inner life during this period. 

§ 1. The History of the New Covenant divides itself 
into two chief parts: — The Revelation of the Gospel by Je- 
sus Christ, including the accomplishment of his work of re- 
demption ; and the Propagation of the Gospel, and full estab- 
lishment of the Christian Church, after his ascension. 

The former history is written in the " Gospels " of the 
" Four Evangelists," the respective openings of which furnish 
us with four different, but almost equally important, starting- 
points for all that follows. St. Matthew, who writes with 
the most constant reference to the fulfillment of prophecy, be* 
gins by showing that Jesus Christ was, by his reputed father 
Joseph, the son of David, and the son of Abraham ; the pre- 
dicted king of the royal line of Judah; the promised seed, 
in whom all kindreds of the earth were to be blessed ; the 
great object of the Covenants made by God with Abraham 
and with David. St. Mark, commencing at once with the 
public proclamation of Christ, dates " the beginning of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God " from the ministry of 
John the Baptist as his forerunner. St. Luke places in the 
forefront of his narrative its practical purpose, for the instruc- 
tion of a convert to Christianity, and begins " to write in or- 
der " from the birth of John the Baptist, and of Christ him- 
self. St. Johx, having his mind imbued with the mysteries 
revealed to the " disciple whom Jesus loved," goes back to 
a "beginning" antecedent to all time, and displays the eter- 
nal and divine glory of that " Life and Light," which were 
manifested by Christ when he appeared on earth. 

And what is true of the beginning of the Gospel history 
applies to each step of its subsequent development. Critics 
may speculate on some common remoter source of the narra- 
tives of the four evangelists, till they learn to abandon the un- 
profitable search : harmonists may pursue their useful labors 
so far as to be in danger of confounding the separate charac- 
ters of the four documents in the artificial compound of their 
own making : but the student who rightly appreciates the 
purpose of God's providence, in entrusting the record to four 
writers instead of one, will trace the distinct spirit of each as 
really his own, and will find the truest harmony in the con- 
cordant spiritual impression they produce, under the guid- 
ance of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 

§ 2. " The Beginning " of which St. John speaks, both in 



B.C. 5. The Beginning of the Gospel. 179 

the opening of his Gospel and of his General Epistle, is the 
true point of view for understanding the New Covenant. In 
this light the histories of the two covenants open with the 
self-same words: — " In the beginning /" and there is a closer 
connection between them than of language only. The God 
who, in the beginning of the Old Covenant, created the heav- 
en and the earth, to be the scene of man's probation, was the 
same as that divine " Word," whose dwelling " with God," 
both in essential glory and in council on men's behalf, formed 
the true beginning of the Covenant of Redemption. " The 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and 
truth; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only be- 
gotten of the Father." x The discussion of this " great mys- 
tery of godliness," as a point of theological science, belongs 
not to the present work : we only insist on the plain truth, as 
the point of view from which our Saviour's work on earth de- 
rives all its meaning. It is thus that the Apostle Paul places 
the same great truth before his summary of the steps by which 
Christ advanced from the cradle to the throne : — " Without 
controversy, great is the mystery of godliness ; God teas man- 
ifested in the flesh, justified by the Spirit, seen of angels, 
preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received 
up into glory." 2 The narratives of the four Evangelists fill up 
the outline which the Apostle draws in these few bold strokes. 

Between the two points thus marked by St. John, there lies 
the whole preparatory training of the human race and the 
chosen family, with the successive steps in the revelation of 
the one great promise. A summary of the testimony of the 
Old Covenant to Christ would be no inappropriate preface to 
the history of the New ; but having continually kept in view 
the evangelical aspect of the Old Covenant, and having to re- 
cur to it on the occasion of the fulfillment of the several proph- 
ecies, we may at once accompany St. Luke to the first scene 
of the history itself. ' -J 

§ 3. In the reign of Herod the Great, there lived in Judaea 
an aged couple, both of them being of priestly descent, and of 
the most devout and blameless character, Zacharias and Elisa- 
beth. They were childless, and Elisabeth was too old to hope 
for offspring. Now it came to the turn of Zacharias to fulfill 
his week of service in the temple, as a priest of the course of 
Abia or Abij ah, the 8th of the courses appointed by David. 3 At 

1 John i. 14. j tered, considering the personal ante- 

2 1 Tim. iii. 16. Even if we admit ! cedent which the bg implies. 

the reading bg for Oeog, the bearing j 3 Luke i. 5-8 : comp. 1 Chr. xxiv. 
of the passage is not materially al- ' 10 ; 2 Chr. viii. 14. 



180 



History of Jesus Christ. 



Chap. VL 



the solemn moment of the daily (probably the morning) sacri- 
fice, when he had carried the blood of the lamb into the Holy 
Place, and the people were praying without, the angel Gabriel, 
the same who had foretold to Daniel the time of the Messiah, 
appeared to him, in the form of a man, standing by the altar of 
incense. 4 He announced to Zacharias that Elisabeth should 
bear him a son, whose name was to be called John. 6 The 
vow of a Nazarite was to be upon him from the womb ; and 
he was to discharge the very ministry which had been assign- 
ed by the prophet Malachi to Elijah, as the forerunner of the 
Lord. 6 The doubts which Zacharias began to utter were si- 
lenced by the sentence of dumbness till the promise should be 
fulfilled ; and, when he came forth, his speechless signs con- 
vinced the waiting people that he had seen some strange vis- 
ion. This last point is of no little importance in connection 
with what we know from other sources of the state of ex- 
pectation into which the Jews were now wrought^ awaiting 
the promise of the Messiah. 

Elisabeth had already been living in retirement in the hill 
country south of Jerusalem for five months, rejoicing in the 
removal of her reproach of barrenness, when in the sixth the 
same angel was sent on a similar, but still higher mission, to 
the city of Nazareth in Galilee. There lived Mary, as she is 
invariably called in the sacred narrative, without any of those 
titles of reverence or superstition, by which men, trying to 
adorn her incomparable dignity, have sown the seeds of Ma- 
riolatry. She was still a maiden, but betrothed to Joseph, 
who, like herself, was of the royal house of David. 7 He was 
a carpenter by occupation; and the condition of both was 
lowly, though not that of abject poverty. 

For Mary was reserved the lot which had been the object 
of intense desire to every Hebrew bride, and to every mother 
of the patriarchal race, since Eve first vainly imagined that it 
had been fulfilled, " I have gotten a man, even Jehovah " — 
the promised seed, the Redeemer from sin. Her high destiny 
was revealed by the angel's salutation, " Hail ! thou that art 
highly favored, the Lord be with thee : blessed art thou 
among women." As she trembled with astonishment, he pro- 
ceeded to announce her miraculous visitation by the power of 
the Holy Ghost, and the birth of a son whose name she was 



4 Luke i. 11, 19: comp. Dan. viii. 
16, ix. 21-23. 

5 The Hebrew Johanan = Jelioa- 
nan, the aift of Jehovah. Sec below, 
note 20 . ' 



6 Luke i. 11-17: comp. Mai. iv, 
5. 

7 Notes and Illustrations (A) Gen« 
ealogy or Jesus Christ. 



RC.5. Birth of John the Baptist 181 

to call Jesus, who was to be the Son of the Highest and the 
heir of his father David in a kingdom without end. He con- 
firmed her faith by the example of Elisabeth, who was her reh 
ative, though they were of different tribes ; and Mary could 
only reply in those simple words of submissive piety, " Behold 
the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto me according to thy 
word !" 8 

The " Annunciation " is still celebrated as a Christian festi- 
val (March 25th, commonly called Lady Day) ; 9 and it has 
furnished a favorite subject for Christian art. But, beyond 
this, the words of the angel (v. 28) have been perverted into a 
ground for worship, and the " Ave Maria " is the daily prayer 
of myriads. Without staying to expose the grosser excesses 
of Mariolatry, we may be content to point out an antidote, in 
our Saviour's own words placing the humblest believer on a 
level with his mother ; 10 words of which the spirit is thus 
beautifully expressed by one whose reverence draws him to 
the very verge of something more : — 

" Ave Maria ! thou whose name 
All but adoring love may claim, 

Yet may ice reach thy shrine ; 
For He, thy Son and Saviour, vows 
To crown all lowly lofty brows 
With love and joy like thine. 

"Bless'd is the womb that bare Him ; bless'd 
The bosom where His lips were press'd : 

But rather bless'd are they 
Who hear his word and keep it well, 
The living homes where Christ shall dwell 

And never pass away." u 

The latest and worst phase of the error has been the attempt 
to extend to Mary herself the distinction which Christ alone 
possessed, of being conceived without sin. 

Immediately after the Annunciation, Mary hastened to 
visit her cousin Elisabeth, who was residing with her hus- 
band, in one of the Levitical cities among the hills of Judah, 
probably Hebron, the ancient capital of the priests, or Jut- 

8 Luke i. 26-38. The exact mean- 1 similar difference in the truo date of 
i'ng of KExapiTiofitvr) in the salutation J the Annunciation. Respecting the ap- 
is, thou on whom a free gift of grace j parent anomaly of placing the birth 
is bestowed. I of our Lord in B.C. 4, sec Notes 

u The opinion which places the i and Illustrations (B). 
birth of Jesus Christ somewhat be- • 10 Luke xi. 27, 28. 
fore the Passover rather than the end j u Keble, Christian Year: The An* 
of the year, would of course make a I nunciation. 



182 History of Jesus Christ. Chap. VL 

tah. 12 The first words she uttered on her entrance seemed 
to give life to her cousin's unborn child ; and, prompted by 
this sign, Elisabeth saluted Mary as " the mother of the 
Lord." It was then that Mary, doubtless by immediate in- 
spiration, uttered the first of those three glorious canticles 
concerning the advent of Christ, which are preserved in the 
opening chapters of St. Luke, and which have become the 
chief hymns of the Christian Church, the Magnificat™ the 
Benedictus, 14 and the JSPunc Diminish The Magnificat, or 
Song of Mary, is based on Hannah's Song of Thanksgiving 
when she offered Samuel to Jehovah, 10 but it is richly fraught 
with phrases taken from the whole range of Old Testament 
Poetry. One term deserves especial notice because of its 
superstitious abuse : " From henceforth all generations shall 
call me blessed," or rather " count me happy," is an utterance 
of exuberant joy first used by Leah on the birth of Asher." 
Mary stayed with Elisabeth three months, till just before the 
birth of John the Baptist. 

§ 4. That event gave rise to the first public intimation of 
the wonders that were about to dawn on Israel. Elisabeth's 
relations and friends assembled to congratulate her, and on 
the eighth day from its birth, the child was brought to the 
priest for circumcision. 18 On this occasion the new-born 
child was named, as if to connect it by its personal identity 
with the privileges and obligations of Jehovah's covenant. 19 
The near relatives, who took the lead as Zacharias was still 
dumb, were giving the child its father's name, when Elisa- 
beth insisted on its being called John, a name sacred by 
many recollections, especially in the house of Levi, 20 and 
borne by the Maecabaean princes, but strange to the house of 
Zacharias. The father, appealed to by signs, surprised the 
company by writing on his tablets, u Sis name is John." 
With this act of obedience to the angelic vision, his tongue 
was loosed, and he praised God. The news spread through 
all the hills of Judah, not merely exciting wonder, but deep 
thought and expectation, " What manner of child shall this 
be ?" Signs, connected probably with the early development 
of the power and temper of the ISTazarite, showed that " the 



12 Luke i. 39 : coinp. Josh. xxi. 
9-11. On Juttah, see Josh. xv. 55, 
xxi. 16. It still bears the name of 
Yutta, and is south of Hebron. 

13 Luke i. 46-55. 14 Luke i. 68-79. 
15 Luke ii. 29-32. 1G 1 Sam. ii. 1 -9. 
17 Gen. xxx. 13. For similar uses of 



f.ictKctpiZ,(o, see Prov. xxxi. 28, Mai. iii. 
12, James v. 11. 38 Lev. xii. 3. 

19 The like usage in the Christian 
Church makes the personal name the 
christening and Christian name. 

20 See Johanan and John in the 
Diet, of the Bible* 



B.C4, Birth of Jesus. 183 

hand of the Lord was with him." The spirit of prophecy 
came upon Zacharias ; and, in the second of the hymns al- 
ready mentioned, he blessed God who had at length visited 
his people with redemption, and raised up for them a prince 
and Saviour of the house of David, to fulfill his covenant with 
Abraham ; and announced that John was the prophet of God 
and the herald of this Saviour. 

The child's training was in accordance with this destiny. 
Kot only bound by the vow of a Kazarite, but appointed to 
proclaim repentance to a people sunk in all the sins that 
spring from self-indulgence, he had to practice the sternest 
self-denial, but for which perhaps he might have become an- 
other Samson : — " The child grew and waxed strong in 
spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing to 
Israel." 21 This text compels us to abandon all the fancies of 
the great painters, whose "Holy Families" exhibit John in 
familiar intercourse with Jesus, whom he did not know when 
he came to him for baptism. 22 While Jesus was brought up 
at Nazareth, John lived in the wild region west of the Dead 
Sea, with the prophet's garment of camel's hair girded about 
him, 23 feeding on locusts and wild honey, 24 and prepared for 
his mission, like his prototype Elijah, by solitary communion 
with God. 

§ 5. Meanwhile Mary, on her return to Nazareth, had her 
joy overcast by a great trial. According to Jewish law, the 
tie of betrothal was as sacred as the marriage vow itself ; and 
Mary's apparent violation of that bond exposed her to the 
death of an adulteress. But Joseph was no hard man, 25 and 
he was thinking of giving her a bill of divorcement privately, 
when an angel revealed to him, in a dream, the holy mystery 
of Mary's conception, and repeated the injunction already 
given to her to call the child Jesus, " for he shall save his 
people from their sins." 20 Thus was fulfilled the great proph- 



21 Luke i. 80. 22 Johni. 31. 

23 Matt. iii. 4 ; Mark i. 6 : comp. 2 
K. i. 8. 

L4 Comp. Lev. xi. 22. The strict 
law of the Nazarite forbade honey ; 



est justice, which is superior to law, 
and so considerate for others. The 
source of the error is moral ; a con- 
fusion between true justice and the 
selfish assertion of one's own right. 



but it was not prohibited to John by , According to this view, Shylock was 
the angel, Lukei. 15. See p. 199. I the most just of men, till he was out- 

25 The English reader, hesitating I witted by one still juster. 
about the propriety of the word u just " I 26 Matt. i. 21. Jesus Qlnaovq) is 
in this connection (Matt. i. 19), is I the Gi'eek form of the name Joshua or 
hardly helped by the information that ! Jeshua, a contraction of Jehoshua, 
the word translated "just " (ekaioc) \ that is, ' ; help of Jehovah " or " Sav- 
means also kind. The truth is that j iour " (Num. xiii. 1G). - Jesus is tho 
it means fair, regardful of that high- I proper name of our Lord: that of 



184 



History of Jesus Christ 



CilAP. VI. 



ecy of Isaiah, concerning the birth of Emmanuel ( God with 
us) from a virgin mother. 26 b Joseph immediately obeyed the 
command of the angel to complete the esponsal of Mary, but 
he abstained from consummating the marriage till after the 
birth of Jesus. 27 The subsequent virginity of Mary is simply 
another of the figments which really add nothing to her digni- 
ty or holiness. 

§ 6. Though the home of Joseph and Mary was at Nazareth, 
the sure word of prophecy had declared that the Christ should 
be born at Bethlehem, the native place of his royal father 
David; 28 and this was accomplished by the agency of the 
Roman emperor. A decree was issued by Augustus for a 
census of "all the world" over which his power extended, 
that is, the Roman Empire and its subject kingdoms. The 
connection of Judaea with the province of Syria, first estab- 
lished by Pompey, was not regarded as utterly dissolved by 
Herod's elevation to the throne ; nor was the dying prince, 
for such was Herod's condition at this time, likely to contest 
the authority under whose shelter his reign had flourished, 
even though the census might betray the intention of absorb- 
ing his kingdom into the empire. 29 The sacred pride of the 
Jews in their genealogies would lead them to hasten to the 
head cities of their tribes and families. Thus Mary, though 
about to become a mother, traversed with her husband the 
length of the land, from Nazareth to Bethlehem, 30 the royal 
city of David, to whose house they both belonged. The car- 
avanserai was crowded with wealthier and more important 
travelers ; so they sought shelter in a stable. Here Mary 
gave birth to the Saviour of the world, and made his cradle 
in the manger of the cattle. 31 

But there was no lack of heralds and attendants to wel- 
come Him who said, " Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven." ]STo sooner was Jesus bora than his 
Gospel — " good tidings of great joy to all the people " — was 
proclaimed by an angel of Jehovah to certain shepherds, who 
were keeping their flocks in the fields by night, the fit image 
of the "great shepherd of the sheep." While he directed 

Vhrist identifies him with the prom- 
ised Messiah (John i. 41), the name 
given to the long promised Prophet 
and King whom the Jews had been 
taught by the prophets to expect. 
The word Christ (Xpivrog, from %pi w, 
"I anoint") signifies, like Messiah, 
"Anointed." 
™ b Is. vii. 14 



18-25 



Mic. v. 2. 



27 Matt, i. 

29 Luke ii. 1, 2. "And this taxing 
(census) was first made when Cyre- 
nius (Quirinus) wa9 governor of Syr- 
ia." Respecting the difficulties in- 
volved in this passage, see Notes and 
Illustrations (C). 

30 On Bethlehem, see Notes and Il- 
lustrations (D). 31 Luke ii. 1-7 



B.C. 4. 



Jesus Carried to the TempCc. 



185 



them to Bethlehem, the glory of God shone round them, and 
a multitude of the heavenly host joined in the chorus, — ■ 
" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will 
toward (or among) men." Hastening to Bethlehem, the shep- 
herds found the new-born child with his parents, and became 
the first witnesses to his advent. They praised God, and 
spread the news abroad, and Mary pondered in her heart the 
welcome which her babe had received from heaven. 33 

§ 7. Already acting on the principle afterward proclaimed 
by Christ, — u it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness," 33 — . 
since he .was not only " born of a woman," but also " bom 
under the law," 34 his parents brought him to the priest for 
circumcision at the earliest time appointed by the law, the 
eighth day from his birth ; and he was called Jesus, as the 
angel had commanded. 35 But the law had still another claim 
upon him ; and the only begotten son of God was presented 
to him in the same manner as the other first-born sons of 
Jewish mothers. 30 As soon as the forty days allotted for 
purification after the birth of a son had expired, Mary and 
Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple at Jerusalem, with the 
sacrifice appointed for the poorer sort of the people, " a pair 
of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons," one for the burnt- 
offering and the other for the sin-offering, — in place of the 
full sacrifice of a lamb for the burnt-offering, and a pigeon or 
turtle-dove for the sin-offering. 37 

This first appearance of Jesus in the Temple was the sig 
nal for his reception by those who may be regarded as the 
representatives of the spiritual remnant of Israel. An aged 
man and woman had long watched, with prophetic spirit, for 
the dawn of the Sun of Righteousness. Simeon, 38 who had 
been forewarned by the Holy Spirit, that he should not die 
till he had seen the " Anointed of Jehovah," was now guided 
by the same spirit into the Temple ; and, taking the child in 
his arms, he proclaimed him, for the first time, as the Christ 
of God, and declared that, for himself, the time was come 



82 Luke ii. 8-20. 

33 Matt. i. 15. 34 Gal. iv. 4. 

35 Luke ii. 21 ; Matt. i. 25. It 
should be observed that Matthew al- 
ready gives Jesus his official name 
of Christ. 

36 Ex. xiii. 2 ; Num. viii. 16, 17. 

37 Luke ii. 22-24 ; Lev. xii. 

38 This Simeon has been identified 
by some with the Simeon who suc- 
ceeded his father Hillel as president 



of the Sanhedrim about a.d. 13, and 
whose son Gamaliel was the Pharisee 
at whose feet St. Paul was brought 
up. But this is improbable. Sim- 
eon was a common name among 
the Jews ; and it is not likely that 
St. Luke would have introduced so 
celebrated a character as the Presi- 
dent of the Sanhedrim merely as "a 
man in Jerusalem." 



186 



History of Jesus Christ 



Chap. VI. 



to depart in peace, since his eyes had seen the Salvation of 
God, the Light of the Gentiles, and the Glory of Israel. Thus 
does his sacred song, in which the Church has ever since 
united, embody the full doctrine of the personal glory of 
Christ, the spiritual purpose of his mission, and its universal 
extent ; truths which, when fully learned, prepare the Chris- 
tian to repeat from the heart his " Nunc Dimittis" 39 But 
his prophecy was not ended ; for, as Joseph and Mary won- 
dered at his words, he announced the varied reception which 
Christ would meet from his own people, the trial of the in- 
most hearts of men by his spirit, and the sorrows which, in 
striking at him, should smite through his mother's heart, — 
the primal curse and blessing on the woman. 40 

Simeon had scarcely ceased, when Anna, the daughter of 
Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, entered the sacred court. 
This, devout woman had employed her widowhood of 84 
years, after a marriage of only V, in constant prayers and fast- 
ing within the precincts of the Temple. She was a prophet- 
ess ; and in that character she now gave thanks to God for 
the advent of the Christ, and repeated her testimony to all 
that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. It seems to be im- 
plied that these " true Israel " were few, and known to one 
another, a small church among the nation; nor ought we 
to overlook the part which the express mention of Anna's 
tribe gives to Israel, as well as Judah, in the welcoming 
of Christ. 41 

§ 8. Nor was he without a welcome from the heathen 
world. " The Gentiles came to his light, and kings to the 
brightness of his rising." 42 Tradition and philosophy have 
had much to say of the " wise men " — properly Magians — 
who were guided by a star from " the East " to Jerusalem, 
where they suddenly appeared in the days of Herod the 
Great, inquiring for the new-born king of the Jews, whom 
they had come to worship. 43 That they were three in num- 
ber, and that they were named Melchior, Caspar, and Baltha- 
zar, are statements as little genuine as the skulls which grin 
out of the gems that deck their shrine at Cologne. 44 If not 
" kings," they are proved to be persons of the greatest wealth 
and distinction by the "treasures" which they opened, to 
present their gifts to Christ ; and the nature of those gifts, 



89 Luke ii. 25-32. 

40 Luke ii. 33-35: comp. 
ii. 15. 

41 Luke ii. 36-38. 

42 Isaiah lx. 3. 



1 Tim. 



43 Matt. ii. 1, 2. 

44 Their number and names were 
perhaps fixed to meet the require- 
ments of a "Mystery," or "Miracle 
Play." 



B.C. 4. 



Adoration of the Magi. 



187 



" gold, and frankincense, and myrrh," implies the homage 
commonly paid by subject nations to their superior kings and 
conquerors. 45 As to the country from which they came, opin- 
ions vary greatly ; but their following the guidance of a star, 
and their name of Magians, seem to point to the banks of the 
Tigris and Euphrates, 46 where astronomy was early cultivated 
by the Chaldaaans, and where the old Zend religion of Zoroas- 
ter had been established by the Persians. That religion, re- 
maining pure from the grosser forms of idolatry, preserved 
the hope of a great deliverer, who should reform the world 
and establish a reign of peace. That some tradition, influ- 
enced possibly by the Jews of the Dispersion, went so far as 
to make this deliverer a " King of the Jews," seems a fair in- 
ference from the direct form of their inquiry for him. As 
to the sign which guided them, the chief difficulties have 
arisen from the attempt to find a natural explanation ; for the 
plain narrative of St. Matthew evidently represents it as a 
miracle vouchsafed for the occasion. The ingenious conject- 
ure of certain astronomers, that the appearance of the star 
was caused by a remarkable conjunction of Jupiter and Sat- 
urn, is now exploded. 47 The approach of the two planets was 
not at all near enough for them to be mistaken for a single 
star ; nor could habitual observers of the heavens fail to rec- 
ognize the positions of such well-known bodies. Besides, 
their " standing over the place where the young child was," 
so as to define the spot on the surface of the earth, is utterly 
inconceivable. It only remains for us to be content with the 
obvious explanation, that some new luminary, whether mete- 
oric or celestial, was made to appear, in a manner distinct 
enough to the eyes of practiced astronomers, expressly to 
guide the sages on their way. Ages before, a prophet from 
the same regions had predicted the Messiah by the sign of 
" the star that should arise out of Jacob ;" 48 and, while these 
sages watched the heavens with the reverence of worshipers, 
it pleased God to use their own ideas as the source of new 
light, just as Paul declared to the Athenians the "Unknown 
God," whom they ignorantly worshiped.- 

Their arrival and inquiries threw Jerusalem into commo- 
tion. With his usual craft, Herod summoned the Sanhedrim, 



45 Matt. ii. 11: comp. Gen. xliii. 
11; Psalm lxii. 15; 1 Kings x. 2, 
10; 2 Chr. ix. 24. 

46 Their character as representa- 
tives of the whole heathen world is 
perhaps the more decidedly marked 



by their coming from a country be- 
yond the limits of the Roman empire. 

47 See Diet, of the Bible, art. Star 
of the Wise Men. 

48 The prophecy of Balaam, in 
Numbers xxiv. 17. 



188 



History of Jesus Christ. 



Chap. VI. 



and learned that the Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem. 49 
Having inquired from the Magians the time of the star's ap- 
pearance, as a guide to that of the child's birth, he professed 
his desire to worship the new-born king, and sent them on 
to discover his abode. The star again guided them over 
the five miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and at length 
stood still above the house where Jesus was. They paid him 
their willing homage, and presented their costly gifts, the 
first fruits of the wealth and wisdom of the Gentile world. 

The offerings which they brought have been regarded as 
symbolical : the gold was tribute to a king, the frankincense 
was for the use of a priest, and the myrrh was a holy prepar- 
ing for the tomb ; but, in a more general view, these were at 
any rate the offerings made by worshipers, and in that light 
must the Magi be regarded. By means of a dream, a form 
of divination which they were wont to follow with implicit 
faith, though it is not probable that the reason was revealed 
to them, they were warned by God not to return to- Herod, 
and they departed into their own country by another route, 
perhaps by Hebron and round the southern end of the Dead 
Sea. 50 Their evasion increased the fears and rage of Herod, 
who was now racked by the tortures of his last illness. 61 He 
who had sacrificed wife and sons to the safety of his crown, 
resolved to make sure of the destruction of the unknown in- 
fant by a general massacre of all the male children in Bethle- 
hem and its territory under two years old. 52 

The angel of God was again sent to Joseph, to direct him 
to carry Jesus and his mother into Egypt, where they remain- 
ed in safety while the mothers of Bethlehem realized the 
mournful picture long before drawn by Jeremiah under the 
image of Rachel, whose sepulchre was at their gates, weeping 
for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they 
were not. 63 The abode of Jesus in Egypt formed a step by 
which the course of his life was assimilated to that of his 
people's history, and so fulfilled, in its highest sense, the say- 
ing of the prophet Hosea, "Out of Egypt have I called my 
son." 64 The death of Herod, shortly before the Passover of 
the same year, was the signal for their return to Palestine, at 
the command of the angel to Joseph in a dream. But, on en- 



49 Matt. ii. 3-8 : comp. Micah v. 2. 
60 Matt. ii. 9-12. 

51 See Chap. IV. p. 90. 

52 The number of victims is com- 
monly misconceived, see Ch. IV. /. c. 
The Church has placed the "Holy 



Innocents" among its Protomartyrs. 
See Wheatley on the Common Prayer.;, 
c. v. sec. iv. 2. 

53 Jer. xxxi. 15: comp. xl. L 

54 Hosea xi. I. 



B.C. 3, foil. Jesus at Nazareth. 189 

tering Judaea, they learned that the people had been disap- 
pointed of the succession of Herod Antipas, and that the 
throne was occupied by Archelaus, who was likely to tread in 
his father's steps. 65 So they turned aside by the coast road to 
Galilee, and returned to their own city of Nazareth, whose 
name, odious to the Jews of Judah, gave Jesus and his disci- 
ples their first appellation of Nazarenes, as the prophets had 
foretold. 58 

Here, in the retirement of his father's lowly abode, we lose 
sight of Jesus for twelve years. We are only told that " the 
child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom : 
and the grace of God was upon him." 57 It is clear from the 
next event recorded in his history, that these words imply not 
only a growth in moral and spiritual excellence, but a con- 
scious preparation for his ministry by communion with his 
divine Father and by diligent study of the Scriptures. His 
public ministry did not begin witn a sudden impulse, but was 
prepared for by his whole life. The consciousness of his di- 
vine nature and power grew and ripened and strengthened 
until the time of his showing unto Israel. The very silence of 
the evangelists, however, leads to some important inferences re- 
specting our Saviour's training in boyhood and in youth. As 
Neander has observed — " His education for a teacher was not 
due to any of the theological schools then existing in Judaea ;" 
and thus was he the better prepared to stand forth, h < perfect 
independence, as the antagonist and rebuker alike of the dead 
ritualism and hypocritical casuistry of the Pharisees and 
Scribes, and the negative coldness of the Sadducees. And 
while the rigid purity which he taught might suggest some- 
thing of an outward resemblance to the Essenes, he had no 
real connection with that ascetic body, to deaden his sympa- 
thies with humanity at large. Herein was the contrast with 
his forerunner, which he himself traces — " John came neither 
eating nor drinking : the Son of Man came eating and drink- 
ing." 

§ 9. Ever since the Captivity, the great festivals, like the 
other institutions of the law, had been observed with regular- 
ity, and even the women went up to Jerusalem once a year to 
keep the Passover. Such was the custom of our Saviour's 
parents ; and when he reached the age of twelve, he accom- 
panied them to the feast. When Joseph and Mary left Jeru 

55 See Chap. V. § 1, p. 99. | tion of Nazareth, see Notes and IUus- 

56 Matt. ii. 13-23. This is the j trations (E). 

name still given to Christians in fill j 57 Luke ii. 39, 40. 
Mahometan countries. On the posi- | 



190 History of Jesus Christ. Chap. VI 

salem, he remained behind, his absence being only discover- 
ed after the caravan had gone a day's journey. His sorrow- 
ing parents found him in the Temple, the centre of a circle of 
the rjrofessed teachers of the law, astonishing all who heard 
him, both by his replies to them and by his own questions. 58 
There is nothing here to imply a contentious spirit ; but, in 
the sincere effort to obtain instruction, he could not but show 
the fruits of his profound study of the Scriptures, and the pow- 
er of the Spirit that had " filled him with wisdom." This 
" spiritual discernment," by which he opened the true mean- 
ing of God's Word, was the " understanding " which aston- 
ished the " natural men," who had long been bound down to 
the mere letter. 

This interview with the Jewish Rabbis is the first of sev- 
eral discussions in which we may trace our Lord's independ- 
ence of the teaching of the schools. " Had Jesus been train- 
ed in the Jewish seminaries, his opponents would doubtless 
have reproached him with the arrogance of setting up foi 
master where he himself had been a pupil. But, on the con- 
trary, we find that they censured him for attempting to ex- 
plain the Scriptures without having enjoyed the advantages 
of the schools. 69 His first appearance as a teacher in the syn- 
agogue at Nazareth caused even greater surprise, as he was 
known there, not as one learned in the law, but rather as a 
carpenter's son, who had perhaps himself worked at his fa- 
ther's trade. The general impression of his discourses every- 
where was, that they contained totally different materials 
from those furnished by the theological schools." co 

His celebrated reply to his mother — "Why did ye seek 
me ? Knew ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- 
ness ?" not only reveals his full consciousness of his divine 
mission, and his zeal to enter upon it at the earliest opportu- 
nity ; but his use of the word Father derives a peculiar sig- 
nificance from the remonstrance of Mary — " Behold thy fck 
ther and I have sought thee sorrowing." C1 And yet, though 
thus conscious of a higher source of his being, and a higher 
authority for his actions, he again " fulfilled all the righteous- 
ness " of filial duty, and proved that he had learned at this 
early age the hardest of all lessons, to wait God's time when 
we seem to be not only wasting our own, but losing oppor* 
tunities of serving him. 



58 Luke ii. 41-47. 

59 Johnvii, 15: " How knoweth this 
man letters, having never learned?" 



60 Matt. vii. 29 ; Neander's Life of 
Christ, book ii. eh. i. 
u Luke ii. 48-50. 



A.D. 8-26. 



The Youth of Jesus. 



191 



§ 10. The gospel narrative here passes over another inter- 
val of eighteen years, from Christ's 12th year to his 30th, 
with the brief record — " He went down with his parents, and 
came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them : but his moth- 
er kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased 
in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." G2 
That he shared all the outward circumstances of Joseph's low- 
ly lot, is clear from the taunt of his fellow-citizens of Naz- 
areth and the neighborhood — " Is not this the carpenter's 
son ?" 63 That he worked at his father's bench, may be in- 
ferred not only from the circumstances of the case, but also 
from the laudable custom of the Jews, to bring up their sons 
in some trade and handicraft. 04 Joseph appears to have died 
at some time between the visit of Jesus to the Temple in his 
twelfth year and his entrance upon his ministry. Mary had 
a sister also called Mary, the wife of Alphseus or Clopas. 
Her husband appears likewise to have died before the minis- 
try of our Lord commenced; and the two widowed sisters, 
with their families, apparently lived together at Nazareth. 65 

That the " Son of the Highest " was born in an humble 
station, and that the Creator of the world labored as a work- 
man, established from the first his sympathy with all condi- 
tions of humanity without distinction of rank and occupation, 
and marked the beginning of the influence of Christianity on 
the civil and social relations of mankind. In that lowly con- 
dition, too, he would see an abundant measure of the suffer- 
ing which he came to relieve, and enough of the sin from 
which all suffering springs, to supply the want of its con- 
sciousness in his own sinless nature. For the experience of 
sin in the world into which he had come was needful to pre- 
pare him for the great work of saving his people from their 
sins. 

The later incident of his invitation, with his mother, to the 
marriage at Cana, as well as the social character of his public 
life, imply that the whole family lived in cheerful friendly in- 
tercourse with the people of their own and the surrounding 
villages, and that Jesus was no recluse. So much we may 
gather respecting his outer life. The mysteries of his intel- 
lectual, moral, and spiritual progress during that critical pe- 



62 Luke ii. 51, 52. 

63 Matt. xi. 55 ; Mark vi. 3 ; Luke 
iv. 22 ; John vi. 42. 

64 In Mark vi. 3, lie is himself 
called "the carpenter." Mr. Her- 
bert's picture conveys a vivid impres- 



sion of the daily life of the Holy Fam- 
ily, and the forecast of the Shadow 
of the Cross. 

66 See Notes and Illustrations ta 
Chap. IX. pp. 281, 282. 



192 



Notes and 1 llustrations. 



Chap. VI. 



riod, in whioh he passed from boyhood to the full maturity 
of man, are too deep for human imagination, and can only be 
seen in the fruit borne in his ministry. But there is the great 
fact, of the deepest significance for us, that " Jesus increased 
in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.'* 
Here is one of those traits of Christ's perfect humanity, 
which have perhaps been too little regarded by those who 
have had to defend the great doctrine of his true divinity. 
" It behooved him in all things to be made like to his breth- 
ren." This truth is obvious in regard to his physical growth ; 
but it is no less true of his mind and soul. Neither did the 
mysterious union of the Godhead with his human nature ex- 
empt him from learning to know the will of God by patient 
study, and to do it by discipline and self-denial ; nor did that 
complacent regard of the eternal Father for the co-eternal 
Son, which was especially exhibited on his consent to save 
mankind — "Lo ! I come to do thy will, O God" GU — preclude 
that growth in favor, with God as well as man, which was 
the natural reward of his true growth in virtue and in knowl- 
edge. The many proofs that this progress still went on dur- 
ing all his life are crowned by the last scene of trial, in which 
he recognized the possibility of a conflict betAveen the will of 
God and his self-will as man, and agonized in prayer to 
achieve the victory, " Father ! not My will, but Thine, be 
done," 

Such considerations are most important, not only as giving 
us a truer view of our Saviour's nature, but as showing that 
he has the perfect sympathy of experience with our moral, 
ay, and intellectual conflicts, and that his human virtues, how- 
ever transcendant in degree, are in kind real examples, which 
we may imitate by the means he used, because " as he is, so 
are we in this world." 67 



63 Psalm xl. G: Heb. x. 7,9. 



1 John iv. 17. 



NOTES AND 1LLUSTKATIONS. 



(A.) 



GENEALOGY OF JESUS 
CHRIST. 



The genealogies of our Lord, as 
given in St. Matthew and St. Lake, 
have occasioned much discussion. 



It is sufficient to state here that the 
prophets announced our Lord Jesus 
Christ as the seed of Abraham and 
the son of David, and the angel de- 
clared that to him should be given 
the throne of his father David, thai 



Chak VI. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



193 



lie might reign over the house of 
Jacob forever. His descent from 
David and Abraham being therefore 
nn essential part of his Messiahship, 
it was right that his genealogy 
should be given as a portion of Gos- 
pel truth. Considering, further, 
that to the Jews first he was mani- 
fested and preached, and that his 
descent from David and Abraham 
was a matter of special interest to 
them, it seems likely that the proof 
of his descent would be one espe- 
cially adapted to convince them; in 
other words, that it would be drawn 
from documents which they deemed 
authentic. Such were the genealog- 
ical records preserved at Jerusalem. 
And when to the above considera- 
tions we add the fact that the line- 
age of Joseph was actually made out 
from authentic records for the pur- 
pose of the civil census ordered by 
Augustus, it becomes morally cer- 
tain that the genealogy of Jesus 
Christ was extracted from the pub- 
lic registers. Another consideration 
adds yet further conviction. It has 
often excited surprise that the gene- 
alogies of Christ should both give the 
descent of Joseph, and not Mary. 
But if these genealogies were those 
contained in the public registers, it 
could not be otherwise. In them 
Jesus, the son of Mary, the espoused 
wife of Joseph, could only appear as 
Joseph's son (comp. John i. 45). In 
transferring them to the pages of the 
Gospels, the evangelists only add- 
ed the qualifying expression " as 
was supposed " (Luke iii. 23, and its 
equivalent, Matt. i. 16). 

But now to approach the difficul- 
ties with which the genealogies of 
Christ are thought to be beset. These 
difficulties have seemed so considera- 
ble in all ages as to drive commenta- 
tors to very strange shifts. Some, as 
early as the second century, broached 
the notion, which Julius Africanus 
vigorously repudiates, that the gene- 



alogies are imaginary lists, designed 
only to set forth the union of royal 
and priestly descent in Christ. Oth- 
ers on the contrary, to silence this 
and similar solutions, brought in a 
Deus ex machina, in the shape of a 
tradition derived from the Desposyni, 
in which by an ingenious application 
of the law of Levirate to two uterine 
brothers, whose mother had married 
first into the house of Solomon, and 
afterward into the house of Nathan, 
some of the discrepancies Avere rec- 
onciled, though the meeting of the 
two genealogies in Zerubbabel and 
Salathiel is wholly unaccounted for. 
Later, and chiefly among Protestant 
divines, the theory was invented of 
one genealogy being Joseph's and 
the other Mary's, a theory in direct 
contradiction to the plain letter of 
the Scripture narrative, and leaving 
untouched as many difficulties as it 
solves. The fertile invention of An- 
nius of Viterbo forged a book in 
Philo's name, which accounted for 
the discrepancies by asserting that 
all Christ's ancestors, from David 
downward, had two names. The 
circumstance, however, of one line 
running up to Solomon, and the 
other to Nathan, was overlooked. 
Other fanciful suggestions have been 
offered ; while infidels, from Por- 
phyry downward, have seen in what 
they call the contradiction of Mat- 
thew and Luke a proof of the spuri- 
ousness of the Gospels ; and critics, 
like Professor Norton, a proof of 
such portions of Scripture being in- 
terpolated. Others, like Alford, con- 
tent themselves with saying that so 
lution is impossible, without further 
knowledge than we possess. But it 
is not too much to say that after all, 
in regard to the main points, there is 
no difficulty at all, if only the doc- 
uments in question are dealt with 
reasonably, and after the analogy of 
similar Jewish documents in the 
O. T. : and that the clues to a right 



194 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. VI. 



understanding of them are so patent, 
and so strongly marked, that it is 
surprising that so much diversity of 
opinion should have existed. The 
following propositions will explain 
the true construction of these geneal- 
ogies : 

1. They are both the genealogies 
of Joseph, i. e., of Jesus Christ, as the 
reputed and legal son of Joseph and 
Mary. One has only to read them 
to be satisfied of this. The notices 
of Joseph as being of the house of 
David, by the same evangelists who 
give the pedigree, are an additional 
confirmation (Matt. i. 20 ; Luke i. 
27, ii. 4, etc.) ; and since there can 
be little doubt that these pedigrees 
were extracted from the public ar- 
chives, they must have been Joseph's. 

2. The genealogy of St. Matthew 
is Joseph's genealogy as legal suc- 
cessor to the throne of David, i. e., it 
exhibits the successive heirs of the 
kingdom ending with Christ, as Jo- 
seph's reputed son. St. Luke's is. 
Joseph's private genealogy, exhibit- 
ing his real birth, as David's son, 
and thus showing why he was heir 
to Solomon's crown. The simple 
principle that one evangelist exhibits 
that genealogy which contained the 
successive heirs to David's and Sol- 
omon's throne, while the other ex- 
hibit the paternal stem of him who 
was the heir, explains all the anom- 
alies of the two pedigrees, their agree- 
ments as well as their discrepancies, 
and the circumstance of there being 
two at all. 

3. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was 
in all probability the daughter of Ja- 
cob, and first cousin to Joseph her 
husband. So that in point of fact, 
though not of form, both the geneal- 
ogies are as much hers as her hus- 
band's. 

Respecting the minor difficulties 
in the genealogies, the student is re- 
ferred to the Diet, of the Bible, art. 
Genealogy of Jesus Christ. 



(B.) 



DATE OF THE BIRTH OB 
JESUS CHRIST. 



According to the received chro- 
nology, which is in fact that of Dio- 
nysius Exiguus in the 6th century, 
our Lord was born in the year of 
Rome 754, which is therefore called 
a.d. 1. But modern writers, with 
hardly an exception, believe that this 
calculation places the Nativity some 
years too late ; although they differ 
as to the amount of error. Herod the 
Great died, according to Josephus, 
in the thirty-seventh year after he 
was appointed king {Ant. xvii. 8, § 1, 
B.J.i. 33, § 8). His elevation co- 
incides with the consulship of Cn. 
Domitius Calvinus and C. Asinius 
Pollio, and this determines the date 
a.tt.c. 714 — b.c. 40 (Joseph. Ant. 
xiv. 14, § 5). There is reason to 
think that in such calculations Jo- 
sephus reckons the years from the 
month Nisan to Nisan ; and also that 
the death of Herod took place in the 
beginning of the thirty-seventh year, 
or just before the Passover (Joseph. 
Ant. xvii. 9, § 3) ; if then thirty-six 
complete years are added, they give 
the year of Herod's death a.tj.c. 750 
= b.c. 4. As Jesus was born dur- 
ing the life of Herod, it follows from 
these data that the Nativity took 
place some time before the month of 
April, 750 ; and if it took place only 
a few months before Herod's death, 
then its date would be four years 
earlier than the Dionysian reckon- 
ing. "We have no precise data for 
determining the interval between the 
birth of Jesus and the death of Her- 
od; but there are some reasons for 
supposing it to have been briefer than 
the space between " Christmas " and 
"Easter." The epoch of the Chris- 
tian era, however, is independent of 
this nice calculation, being the zero 
point between Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 
nearest the actual event, i. e., the be< 
ginning of b.c. 4.— Mr. Levvin, how* 



Chap. VI. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



195 



ever, places the birth of our Lord in 
b.c. 6, about August 1. See note 
on p. 358. 



(C.) CYRENIUS AND 

CENSUS. 



THE 



Cyrenius (Kvprjviog) is a Greek 
form of the Roman name Quirinus, 
whose full name is Publius Sulpicius 
Quirinus. He was consul b.c. 12, and 
made governor of Syria after the 
banishment of Archelaus in a.d. 7 
(Joseph. Ant. xvii. 13, § 5). He was 
sent to make an enrolment of proper- 
ty in Syria, and made accordingly, 
both there and in Judsea, a census 
or cnroypatpi) (Joseph /. c, and xviii. 1, 
§ 1). Bat this census seems in Luke 
(ii. 2) to be identified with one which 
took place at the time of the birth of 
Christ, when Sentius Saturninus is 
said to have been governor of Syria. 
Hence has risen a considerable dif- 
ficulty, which has been variously 
solved either by supposing some cor- 
ruption in the text of St. Luke (a sup- 
position which is not countenanced 
by any external critical evidence), or 
by giving some unusual sense to his 
words, avTT] t] airoypatyri 7rpwrr] iykvero 
rjyijxovevovroQ rrjg, 2vpiag Kvprjviov. 
But Prof. A. W. Zumpt, of Berlin, has 
assigned good reasons for believing 
that Quirinus was twice governor of 
Syria, and that the first census was 
made in his first governorship, which 
dates from b.c. 4 to b.c. 1, when he 
was succeeded by M. Lollius. 



(D.) BETHLEHEM. 

Bsth-lehem (i. e. house of bread), 
is one of the oldest towns in Pales- 
tine. Its earliest name was Eph- 
rath or Ephratah (see Gen. xxxv. 
16, xlviii. 7 ; Josh. xv. 59, LXX.), 
and it is not till long after the oc- 
cupation of the country by the Is- 
raelites that we meet with it under 



its new name of Bethlehem. The 
ancient name still lingered as a fa- 
miliar word in the mouths of the in- 
habitants of the place (Ruth i. 2, iv. 
11 ; 1 Sam. xvii. 12), and in the po- 
etry of the Psalmists and Prophets 
(Ps. exxxii. 6 ; Mic. v. 2) to a late pe- 
riod. After the conquest, Bethlehem 
appears under its own name Beth- 
lehem-judah (Judg. xvii. 7 ; 1 Same 
xvii. 12; Ruth i. 1, 2), possibly to dis- 
tinguish it from the small and re- 
mote place of the same name in Zeb- 
ulun. Bethlehem, although the 
birthplace of David and our Lord, 
remained in obscurity throughout 
the whole of the Sacred history. Aft- 
er its mention in the N. T. we hear 
nothing more of Bethlehem till near 
the middle of the 2d century, when 
Justin Martyr speaks of our Lord's 
birth as having taken place "in a 
certain cave very close to the village," 
which cave he goes on to say had 
been specially pointed out by Isaiah 
as "a sign." The passage from 
Isaiah to which he refers is xxxiii 
13-19, in the LXX. version of which 
occurs the following — " He shall dwell 
on high : His place of defense shall 
be in a lofty cave of the strong rock " 
(Justin, Dial c. Tryph. §§ 78, 70). 
While it is not possible to say with 
certainty that the tradition is true, 
there is no reason for discrediting it. 
There is nothing in itself improbable 
in the supposition that the place in 
which Joseph and Mary took shelter, 
and where was the "manger" or 
' ' stall " (whatever the (pdrvq may have 
been), was a cave in the limestone 
rock of which the eminence of Beth- 
lehem is composed. But the step 
from the belief that the nativity may 
have taken place in a cavern, to the 
belief that the present subterraneous 
vault or crypt is that cavern, is a 
very wide one. The present church 
was built by Constantine about a.d. 
330. 

The modern town of Beit-iahm 



196 



Notes amd Illustrations. 



Chap. VI 



lies. to the E. of the main road from 
Jerusalem to Hebron, 6 miles from 
the former. It covers the E. and 
N.E. parts of the ridge of a "long 
gray hill " of Jura limestone, which 
is about a mile in length. 



(E.) NAZARETH. 

Nazareth is not mentioned in the 
Old Testament or in Josephus, but 
occurs first in Matt. ii. 23, though a 
town could hardly fail to have ex- 
isted on so eligible a spot from much 
earlier times. It is situated among 
the hills which constitute the south 
ridges of Lebanon, just before they 
sink down into the Plain of Esdrae- 
lon. Among those hills is a valley 
which runs in a waving line nearly 
east and west, about a mile long and, 
on the average, a quarter of a mile 
broad, but which at a certain point 
enlarges itself considerably so as to 
form a sort of basin. In this basin 
or enclosure, along the lower edge of 
the hill-side, lies the quiet secluded 
village in which the Saviour of men 
spent the greater part of his earthly 
existence. Being so sheltered by 
hills, Nazareth enjoys a mild atmos- 
phere and climate. Hence all the 
fruits of the country — as pomegran- 
ates, oranges, figs, olives — ripen early 
and attain a rare perfection. Of the 
identification of the ancient site there 
can be no doubt. The name of the 
present village is cn-Nazirah, the 
same, therefore, as of old ; it is form- 
ed on a hill or mountain (Luke iv. 
29) ; it is within the limits of the 
province of Galilee (Mark i. 9) ; it is 
near Cana (whether we assume Kana 
on the east or Kana on the north-east 
as the scene of the first miracle), ac- 
cording to the implication in John 
ii. 1, 2,-11 ; a precipice exists in the 
neighborhood (Luke iv. 29) : and, 
finally, a series of testimonies reach 
back to Eusebius, the father of 



Church history, ^ hich represent the 
place as having occupied an invaria- 
ble position. 

The origin of the disrepute in 
which Nazareth stood (John i. 47) is 
not certainly known. All the in- 
habitants of Galilee were looked upon 
with contempt by the people of Judaaa 
because they spoke a ruder dialect, 
were less cultivated, and were more 
exposed by their position to contact 
with the heathen. But Nazareth 
labored under a special opprobrium, 
for it was a Galilean and not a south- 
ern Jew who asked the reproachful 
question, whether " any good thing" 
could come from that source. The 
term "good " (dyaOov), having more 
commonly an ethical sense, it has 
been suggested that the inhabitants 
of Nazareth may have had a bad 
name among their neighbors for irre- 
ligion or some laxity of morals. The 
supposition receives support from the 
disposition which they manifested 
toward the person and ministry of 
our Lord. They attempted to kill 
him ; they expelled him twice (if 
Luke iv. 16-29, and Matt. xiii. 54-58, 
relate probably to different occur- 
rences) from their borders ; they were 
so willful and unbelieving that ho 
performed not many miracles among 
them (Matt. xiii. 58) ; and, finally, 
they compelled him to turn his back 
upon them and reside at Capernaum 
(Matt. iv. 13). 

Among the "holy places" which 
the legends have sought to connect 
with events in the life of Christ, two 
localities are of special interest. 
One of these is the " Fountain of the 
Virgin," situated at the north-east- 
ern extremity of the town, where, 
according to one tradition, the moth- 
er of Jesus received the angel's sal- 
utation (Luke i. 28). Though we 
may attach no importance to this 
i latter belief, we must, on other ac 
I counts, regard the spring with a feel- 
I ing akin to that of religious venera/ 



Chap. VI. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



197 



tion. It derives its name from the 
fact that Mary, during her life at 
Nazareth, no doubt accompanied oft- 
en by " the child Jesus," must have 
been accustomed to repair to this 
fountain for water, as is the practice 
of the women of that village at the 
present day. It presents a- busy 
scene, from the number of those, 
hurrying to and fro, engaged in the 
labor of water-carrying. 

The other place is that of the at- 
tempted Precipitation. We are di- 
rected to the true scene of this oc- 
currence, not so much by any tradi- 



tion as by internal indications in the 
Gospel history itself. A \ revalent 
opinion of the country has transfer- 
red the event to a hill about two miles 
south-east of the town. Above the 
town are several rocky ledges over 
which a person could not be thrown 
without almost certain destruction. 
But there is one very remarkable prec- 
ipice, almost perpendicular and forty 
or fifty feet high, near the Maronite 
church, which may well be supposed 
to be the identical one over which his 
infuriated townsmen attempted to 
hurl Jesus. 




Nazareth. 



CHAPTER VII. 



OUR SAVIOUR S EARLY MINISTRY, FROM THE PREACHING OF JOHN 
THE BAPTIST TO CHRIST'S FIRST PASSOVER. A.D. 26-27. 

§ 1. State of Jnclsea at the appearance of John the Baptist. § 2. His 
preaching of repentance, and his Baptism. His addresses to different 
classes. The Pharisees reject, the common people and Publicans be- 
lieve him. § 3. The Baptism of Jesus ; its significance. The descent 
of the Holy Ghost. Jesus proclaimed the Son of God. § 4. The tempt- 
ation of Jesus: its meaning, scene, and incidents: parallel to Moses 
and Elijah in the desert. The ministry of angels. § 5. John disclaims 
the Messiah ship for himself, and proclaims Jesus as the Lamb of God. 
§ G. Two of John's disciples follow Christ — Andrew, and probably John. 
Andrew brings his brother Simon. Beginning of the Christian Church. 
Call of Philip and Nathanael, or Bartholomew. Their successive con- 
fessions of the Christ. § 7. Goes with his disciples into Galilee. The 
Marriage Feast at Cana. Jesus and Mary. Our Lord's First Miracle. 
Essential character of miracles. Already familiar to the Jews. Tests 
laid down by the Rabbis : satisfied in the miracle at Cana. Its effect on 
the disciples. Social aspect of the miracle. Sanction of the ordinance 
of marriage, though himself unmarried. § 8. Christ's short abode at 
Capernaum. Conclusion of the more private opening of his ministry. 
Approach of the Passover. 

§ 1. The preceding narrative has left both Jesus and his 
appointed forerunner awaiting " the time of their showing to 



A.D. 26. Ministry of the Baptist 199 

Israel," the former in the circle of his family, the latter lead- 
ing a wild, ascetic life in the wilderness about Engedi. Mean- 
while, the state of the Holy Land was enough to show that 
" the fullness of time was come " for the appearance of the 
preacher of repentance as the herald of the kingdom of heav 
en, " The sceptre had departed from Judah " at the deposi- 
tion of Archelaus, the son of Herod (a.d. 1) ; and Judaea 
was governed by a Roman procurator under the prefect of 
Syria. 1 The degradation of seeing a heathen power on the 
ruins of the throne of David was embittered by the oppres- 
sion of the publicans (portitores), generally Jews — collectors 
who exacted far more than they had to pay over to the farm- 
ers of the revenue. 2 The people were ripe for rebellion ; and 
a sect arose, under Judas, the Gaulonite, denying the lawful- 
ness of paying tribute to Caesar. 

Such was the state of things in Judaea when Johx the 
Baptist appeared in public, at the epoch which St. Luke 
carefully marks by a concurrence of chronological data. 3 It 
was in the 15th year of Tiberius, a.d. 26 (reckoning from his 
association with Augustus in the empire in a.d. 12), when 
Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judaea, Herod Antipas te- 
trarch of Galilee, Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, 
and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene. Annas and Caiaphas are 
both named as high-priests ; in fact, Annas Avas deposed by 
Valerius Gratus in a.d. 14, and was succeeded after a time by 
his son-in-law, Caiaphas or Joseph. In the subsequent narra- 
tive we fmd both acting together, with a sort of joint authori- 
ty, as heads of the Jewish ])eople. The frequent changes in 
the high-priesthood at this time formed an irritating feature 
of the Roman policy. 

§ 2. At this time of general commotion and expectation, 
the prophetic word of God came to John in the wilderness of 
Judaea, and he came forward as a preacher. Though he laid 
no claim to miraculous powers, 4 there was every thing about 
him to excite attention. A rare, and probably solitary speci- 
men of the ancient Nazarites, like Samson and Samuel, com- 
manding admiration by his life of ascetic retirement, he had 
assumed also the prophet's mantle of camel's hair, fastened to 
the body by a girdle, a dress which of itself recalled the per- 
son of Elijah. 5 Being, in fact, the greatest, as he was the last 

1 See p. 106. | His food was locusts and wild honey. 

2 Luke iii. 13. See Notes and II- j There are -people at this day who 
lustrations (A), The Publicans. : gravely assert that the locusts which 

3 Luke iii. 1, 2. 4 John x. 41. formed part of the food of the Bap- 
5 2 Kings i. 8 : comp. Zech. xiii. 4. tist were not the insects of that name, 



200 Our Saviour's Early Ministry. Chap. Vlt 

prophet, nay, the greatest man of the Old Covenant, he merged 
all claims to personal dignity in his one office as the fore- 
runner of Messiah, foretold by the prophet Isaiah. He al- 
most sinks his personality in his character of a herald : — " I 
am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ' Make straight 
the way of the Lord,' as saith the prophet Esaias." So inti- 
mate was the relation of John's mission to the advent of the 
Christ, that St. Mark pronounces John's preaching in the 
wilderness as predicted by the prophets, " the beginning of 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." 6 

To this character all his preaching was perfectly adapted. 
The prophet Malachi had long since described the work that 
must be done in the hearts of men before they could receive 
the coming Saviour ; and now that John proclaimed " the 
kingdom of heaven is at hand," he preached " repentance for 
the remission of sins," as the condition not only of entrance 
into that kingdom, but of exemption from utter destruction 
from the presence of the great One who was coming. He 
shoAved that aspect of the Gospel, on which Christ also insist- 
ed, that, together with the proffer of mercy, it involves a 
final decision, according as that mercy is accepted or re- 
fused. 7 

The outward sign which marked those who became his dis- 
ciples, the rite from which he obtained his characteristic 
name, the Baptist, taught most impressively the putting away 
the evils by which the whole life of the people was corrupt- 
ed. It is an old controversy whether the baptism of John 
was a new institution, or an imitation of the baptism of pros- 
elytes as practiced by the Jews. 8 But at all events there 
is no record of such a rite, conducted in the name of, and 

but the long sweet pods of the locust- j ter half an hour, throwing away the 
tree, "St. John's bread," as the ! head, wings, and legs, and then 
monks of Palestine call it. But lo- J sprinkling them with peppe* and 



custs dre still used for food in the 
East. There are different ways of 
preparing them for food. Sometimes 
they are ground and pounded, and 



salt, and adding butter ; he found 
them excellent. How strange then, 
nay, " how idle," to quote the words 
of Kirby and Spence (Entom. i. 30o), 



then mixed with flour and water and | " was the controversy concerning the 
made into cakes, or they are salted '■ locusts which formed part of the sus- 
and then eaten ; sometimes smoked ; ' tenance of John the Baptist, . . . and 
boiled or roasted ; stewed, or fried in | how apt even learned men are to per- 
buttcr. Dr. Kitto, who tasted lo- plex a plain question from ignorance 
custs, says they are more like shrimps of the customs of other countries " 
than any thing else; and an English j 6 Mark i. 1-4. 
clergyman, some years ago, cooked j 7 Matt. iii. 10 ; Luke iii. 9. 
some of the green grasshoppers, Lo- | fi On the baptism of proselytes, see 
custa vhidissima. boilinjz them in wa- p. 150. 



A.U. 26. The Baptism of John. 201 

with reference to a particular person, before the ministry oi 
John. 

Each class among the multitudes who flocked from Jerusa- 
lem and all Judaea to hear him, and receive his baptism, w T as 
taught the lesson of repentance in the form they most re- 
quired : — the publicans to practice honesty and moderation ; 
the soldiers to abstain from violence, false accusations, and 
wrongful exactions from a subject people ; the selfish to share 
their abundance with the poor ; while the rival sects of the 
Pharisees and JSadducees, who claimed the exclusive privi- 
leges of the covenant with Abraham, were sternly denounced 
as a "generation of vipers," warned. that God could raise up 
true children to Abraham from the very stones of the desert, 
and summoned to prove their repentance by some good fruits 
before the sentence already uttered was executed, to cut 
them down as barren trees, fit only to be cast into the fire. 9 
All that he said and did inflamed the expectation, to which 
his only answer was by proclaiming the coming of his far 
greater successor. 

These exhortations produced little effect on the two lead- 
ing sects. Of the Pharisees and teachers of the law we are 
distinctly told that "they frustrated the counsel of God 
against themselves, being not baptized of him." It was oth- 
erwise with the mass of the people, and especially with the 
publicans. 10 By accepting the baptism of John, they gave, at 
the very beginning of the Gospel dispensation, an illustration 
of the great principle so often taught by Christ, that the sin- 
ner, conscious of his guilt, is better prepared to enter the 
kingdom of heaven by repentance, than self-righteous men 
who think they need no repentance. The career of John 
seems to have been very brief ; and it has been asked how 
such great influence could have been attained in a short 
time. 11 But his was a powerful nature, which soon took 
possession of those who came within its reach ; and his suc- 
cess becomes less surprising if we assume, with some com- 
mentators, that the preaching took place in a Sabbatical year. 
Speaking generally, John had baptized " all the people," and 
so had " made ready a people prepared for the Lord," when 
the time came for him to crown his ministry by the baptism 
of Jesus himself. The time that had elapsed from the com- 
mencement of his ministry to this event may be safely reck- 

Matt. iii. 7-10 ; Luke iii. 7-9. Oar I 10 Luke vii. 29, 30. This passage 
version hardly gives the full force of explains the extent of the phrase " al] 
the present imperfect of the original, ; the people," in Luke iii. 21 
»* is on the point of being cut down." u Matt. iii. 5 
I 2 



202 Our Saviour's Early Ministry. Chap. VII 

oned at six months, namely, the difference between the ages 
of John and Jesus, assuming that the former, like the latter, 
began his ministry at the regular Levitical age of thirty. 1 "' 
During this period, his predictions of the Messiah grew more 
and more frequent: the "herald" became more distinctly the 
" evangelist." 13 

§ 3. At length Jesus, being about the age of thirty, came 
forth from his retirement at Nazareth and traveled to the 
Jordan, where John was then baptizing, to submit himself to 
the initiatory rite. 14 There is something, at first sight, al- 
most unaccountable in this step. That he who "knew no 
sin " should thus seem .to " arise and wash away his sins ;" 
that he who truly " needed no repentance " and was himself 
the spiritual King, should accept at the hands of the preach- 
er of repentance the rite of initiation into his own kingdom ! 
And so it seemed to John, who at first opposed his wish, ex- 
claiming, " I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest 
thou to me ?" The answer solves the mystery : — " Suffer it 
now" — in this present dispensation of my humiliation — "for 
thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness" He had come 
in the " likeness of sinful flesh," though it was a likeness only. 
" He was made sin for us," though in himself he " knew no 
sin." And he felt it to be as much his part to " condemn sin 
in the flesh," by renouncing it through the water of baptism, 
as by expiating it by his blood upon the cross ; and so he set 
the example of entrance into his kingdom by the path of 
meek repentance, and of solemn obligation to a holy life. 
His conscience, free from all sense of guilt, must have felt it 

12 Luke iii. 23 : comp. Numb. iv. 3, be about thirty years of age" (Luke 
35, 39, 43, 47. The assumption is all iii. 23). As the temptation occupied 
the safer, as John was of the tribe of forty days of the interval, the whole 
Levi and the house of Aaron. > of it may be reckoned at about two 

Connecting the view, that our Lord j or three months, which would place 
was born very shortly before Herod's j our Lord's baptism about the begin- 
death, that is before the Passover of ning of a.d. 27. His whole public 
B.C. 4, with the fact that his public ministry extends over the period of 
ministry commenced at a Passover three full years, from the Jirst Pass- 
(John ii. 13), it seems a necessary over, at which he appeared in the 
inference that the baptism and temp- Temple (a.d. 27), to the, fourth Pass- 
tation of Jesus, with the call of his j over, at which he was crucified (a.d. 
first disciples, and the miracle at Cana 30). 

in Galilee (John ii. 1), took place, in ! 13 Comp. the Krjpvaaiov of Matt. iii. 
part at least, before the completion j 1, with the 7ro\Xd ivriyyeXi&TO of 
of his thirtieth year, in a.d. 27. j Luke iii- 18. 

With this agrees St. Luke's notice, "Matt iii. 13; Mark i, 9; Luke 
inserted after the account of his bap- j iii. 21. 
tism, that u Jesus himself began to ! 



A.D. 27. His Temptation. 203 

hard to descend into the water ; but this first suffering had 
its reward in the glory that at once followed. This first act 
of submission to his Father's will called forth the first public 
tokens of his Father's acceptance of the sacrifice, and approv- 
ing love toward himself. As he stepped past the water's 
edge, he knelt down to pray, devoting his whole being to the 
work to which he had been consecrated by his baptism. At 
that moment a double sign was vouchsafed from heaven to' 
the eyes and ears of the multitude, among whom Jesus had 
hitherto appeared as one of themselves. The sky was seen 
to open, and the Spirit of God descended upon him in a bodily 
shape, like a dove, and a voice was heard from heaven, saying, 
" Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased-" 
The former act was another baptism, which exceeded the 
commission of John, endowing Jesus with the power of God, 
and given to him to be conferred in turn upon his disciples ; 
while the voice was that direct attestation from God himself, 
which the Jewish teachers recognized by the name of the 
Bath- Col (daughter of the voice), and which was twice again 
repeated in the course of his ministry. 14b 

§ 4. Though he had thus fulfilled the main object of his 
ministry, which was " that Christ should be made manifest 
to Israel/' John still continued the work of preparing the 
people to receive him. Meanwhile Jesus was withdraw again 
from the thousands of eyes that were watching what would 
follow, to undergo that trial which was to fit him to sym- 
pathize with his tempted brethren. " Though he were a Son," 
as he had just been proclaimed from heaven, " yet learned he 
obedience by the things that he suffered ; and being thus 
made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto 
all them that obey him." 15 It was immediately after his bap- 
tism, by the very first impulse of the Spirit which had then 
descended on him, that Jesus was driven into the wilderness, 
to undergo in solitude not only the great moral trial of his 
humanity, but the second great trial of human nature itself. 
The forty days spent by our Saviour in the wilderness bear a 
striking resemblance to the forty days' retirement of Moses 
on Mount Sinai, and the forty days spent by Elijah at Horeb ; 
and this likeness between the Mediator of the New Covenant 
and the Mediator and Reformer of the Old becomes the more 
significant from the subsequent appearance of Moses and Eli- 
jah with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration The para! 

" b On the place of our Lord's Baptism, see Notes and Illust: utions (B> 
15 Heb. v. 8, 9. 



204 



Our Saviour's Early Ministry. Chap. VIL 



lei must not, however, be pressed to the inference that our 
Saviour was led so far as the peninsula of Sinai • the scene 
of his temptation w T as probably in the wilderness of Judsea, 
the wild beasts of which are mentioned by St. Mark. 15b 

It is impossible for us to form a complete conception of 
our Lord's temptation, since temptation with us is always as- 
sociated with the possibility of sin, whereas Christ's trial was 
that of one who could not possibly have fallen. But while 
we must be content with an incomplete conception, we must 
avoid the wrong conceptions that are often substituted for it. 
Some suppose the account before us to describe what takes 
place in a vision or ecstasy of our Lord ; so that both the 
temptation and its answer arise from within. Others think 
that the temptation was suggested from within, but in a state, 
not of sleep or ecstasy, but of complete consciousness. Others 
consider this narrative to have been a parable of our Lord, 
of which he has made himself the subject. All these suppo- 
sitions set aside the historical testimony of the Gospels : the 
temptation, as there described, arose not from the sinless 
mind of the Son of God, where, indeed, thoughts of evil could 
not have harbored, but from Satan, the enemy of the human 
race. Nor can it be supposed that this account is a mere 
parable, unless we assume that Matthew and Luke have 
wholly misunderstood their Master's meaning. The story is 
that of a fact, hard indeed to be understood, but not to be 
made easier by explanations such as would invalidate the 
only testimony on which it rests, 

The three temptations are addressed to the three forms in 
which the disease of sin makes its appearance on the soul — 
to the solace of sense, and the love of praise, and the desire 
of gain. 16 But there is one element common to them all — 
they are attempts to call up a willful and wayward spirit in 
contrast to a patient self-denying one. 

In the first temptation the Redeemer is an-hungered, and 
when the devil bids him, if he be the Son of God, command 
that the stones may be made bread, there would seem to be no 
great sin in this use of divine power to overcome the press- 
ing human want. Our Lord's answer is required to show us 
where the essence of the temptation lay. He takes the words 



isb Tradition places the scene of 
our Lord's temptation on one of the 
mountains opposite Jericho, called 
Quaranta or Quaranlnnia, from the 
forty days' fnst. "The mountain 
rises precipitously, an almost perpen- 



dicular wall of rock, twelve or fifteen 
hundred feet above the plain, crowned 
with a chapel on its highest summit." 
But the tradition appears not to bo 
older than the age of the crusndes. 
Robinson, i. p. 5G7. ,6 1 John ii. 16 



A.D. 27. The Ministry of Angels, 205 

of Moses to the children of Israel, 17 which mean, not that 
men must dispense with bread, and feed only on the study of 
the divine word, but that our meat and drink, our food and 
raiment, are all the work of the creating hand of God ; and 
that a sense of dependence on God is the duty of man. He 
tells the tempter that as the sons of Israel, standing in the 
wilderness, were forced to humble themselves and to wait 
upon the hand of God for the bread from heaven which he 
gave them, sc the Son of Man, fainting in the wilderness from 
hunger, will be humble, and will wait upon his Father in 
heaven for the word that shall bring him food, and will not 
be hasty to deliver himself from that dependent state, but 
will wait patiently for the gifts of his goodness. 

In the second temptation, it is not probable that they left 
the wilderness, but that Satan was allowed to suggest to our 
Lord's mind the place and the marvel that could be wrought 
there. They stood, as has been suggested, on the lofty porch 
that overhung the valley of Kedron, where the steep side of 
the valley was added to the height of the Tenrple, 18 and made 
a depth that the eye could scarcely have borne to look down 
upon. " Cast thyself down " — perform in the Holy City, in a 
public place, a wonder that will at once make all men confess 
that none but the Son of God could perform it. A passage 
from the 91st Psalm is quoted to give a color to the argu- 
ment. Our Lord replies by an allusion to another text, that 
carries us back again to the Israelites wandering in the wil- 
derness : " Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempt- 
ed him in Massah." 10 Their conduct is more fully described 
by the Psalmist as a tempting of God : " They tempted God 
in their heart by asking meat for their lust; yea, they spake 
against God : they said, Can God furnish a table in the wil- 
derness ? Behold he smote the rock that the waters gushed 
out, and the streams overflowed. Can he give bread also ? 
Can he provide flesh for his people ?" 20 Just parallel was the 
temptation here. God has protected thee so far, brought 
thee up, put his seal upon thee by manifest proofs of his fa- 
voi. Can he do this also ? Can he send the angels to buoy 
thee up in thy descent ? Can he make the air thick to sus- 
tain, and the earth soft to receive thee ? The appropriate an- 
swer is, " Thou shaft not tempt the Lord thy God." 

In the third temptation it is not asserted that there is any 
mountain from which the eyes of common men can see the 

;7 Deut. viii. 3. \ 19 Deut. vi. 16. 

■ 8 Joseph. Ant. xv. 11, § 5. 20 Ps. lxxviii. 19, 20. 



206 



Our Saviour's Early Ministry. 



Chap. VII. 



world and its kingdoms at once displayed; it was with the men- 
tal vision of One who knew all things that these kingdoms and 
their glory were seen. And Satan has now begmi to discov- 
er, if he knew not from the beginning, that One is here who 
can become the King over them all. He says, " All these 
things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall doAvn and worship 
me." In St. Luke the words are fuller : " All this power will 
I give thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto 
me, and to whomsoever I will I give it :" but these words are 
the lie of the tempter, which he uses to mislead. " Thou art 
come to be great — to be a king on the earth ; but I am strong, 
and will resist thee. Thy followers shall be imprisoned and 
slain ; some of them shall fall away through fear ; others 
shall forsake thy cause, loving this present world. Cast in 
thy lot with me ; let thy kingdom be an earthly kingdom, 
only the greatest of all — a kingdom such as the Jews seek to 
see established on the throne of David. Worshijj me by liv- 
ing as the children of this world live, and so honoring me in 
thy life : then all shall be thine." The Lord knows that the 
tempter is right in foretelling such trials to him ; but, though 
clouds and darkness hang over the path of his ministry, he 
must Avork the work of Him that sent him, and not another 
work : he must worship God and none other. " Get thee 
hence, Satan ; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord 
thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." As regards the 
order of the temptations, there are internal marks that the 
account of St. Matthew assigns them their historical order : 
St. Luke transposes the two last, for which various reasons 
are suggested by commentators. 21 

The ministry of angels to Jesus, at the close of the tempta- 
tion, is the first example (unless we include the cases before 
his birth) of a feature in his career on which the Apostle Paul 
lays stress, and in which we see his command of the world of 
spirits — a command which he has ever used on behalf of his 
tempted people, sending forth his " spirit-servants " to minis- 
ter to the heirs of salvation. Nor should we omit to notice 
that Satan departed from him only " for a season." The great 
decisive battle of obedience to God and resistance to sin had 
been gained ; but the enemy would not confess a final defeat. 
This was pre-eminently the temptation ; but our Lord him- 
self described his course as a scene of continued temptation y 2r 



21 Matt. iv. 1-11 ; Mark i. 12, 13; 
Luke iv. 1-13. The preceding ac- 
count of the temptation is taken from 



Archbishop Thomson's art. Jesus 
Christ, in the Dictionary of the Bible 
22 Lixke xxii. 28. 



A.D. 27. The First Disciples Called. 207 

and he had yet to secure the victory by that last agony in 
which " the prince of the world came, but still found nothing 
in him." And so with his people, " they that endure to the 
end shall be saved" 

§ 5. It would seem that the baptism of Jesus, and his mys- 
terious disappearance, had brought the alarm of the rulers at 
Jerusalem to a climax ; and they sent priests and Levites to 
require John to tell them plainly who he was. They appear 
to have been perplexed between his mission and that of the 
coming "greater one," who had been just shown and then 
withdrawn. To the successive inquiries — "Art thou the 
Christ?" "Art thou Elias?" "Art thou that prophet?"— 
one greater even than Elias, whom the Jews expected to be 
raised again from the dead as the forerunner of the Messiah 
— he gave a direct negative, again repeating the description 
of his work in the words of Isaiah. 

At length there came a day, when he was able to reply to 
their challenge of his right to baptize at all, if he had none of 
these claims, by telling them of One then standing among 
them, though they knew him not, as whose forerunner he him- 
self baptized with water unto repentance. For Jesus had 
now returned from the scene of his temptation ; and, on the 
following day, John seized an opportunity to point him out 
in those memorable words, which describe him as the sub- 
stance of the types of the law, and the one true sacrifice for 
the salvation of all the world — "Behold ! the Lamb of God, 
which taketh away the sin of the world 7" This, he added, 
was the Sox of God, who had been marked by the descent of 
the Spirit, who should confer on them the higher baptism of 
the Holy Ghost, and whose revelation to Israel was the one 
object of his own ministry.' 23 This open proclamation of the 
Christ had no immediate and visible result. The astonished 
people probably went away to meditate on all these wonders, 
while the process of conversion to Christ began, in God's own 
quiet course, with a few individuals, who had been prepared 
to come to him by John's teaching. 

§ 6. It was on the following clay that John, surprised per- 
haps that his words of yesterday had led to no greater result, 
repeated them in a more private w T ay to two of his disciples, 
as they saw Jesus walking by them. It was soon after the 
hour of the evening sacrifice, that they heard him say, for the 
second time, "Behold the Lamb of God;" and this time the 
words came to them with the power of the Spirit. They fob 

33 John i. 19-34. 



208 Our Saviour's Early Ministry. Chap. VII. 

lowed Jesus, and became the two first of his disciples. And 
here we have the record of the very first of " those gracious 
words which proceeded out of his mouth " in the character 
of the Teacher and Saviour of his people. Turning round, 
and seeing them following, not daring to overtake and address 
him, he said, " What seek ye ?" His first words were an un- 
bounded encouragement to prayer. Their effect shows that 
they were uttered with that mingled kindness and authority 
which could proceed from no other lips ; for, at once address- 
ing him by the title of a Jewish teacher, they asked to be ad- 
mitted to his private converse : " Rabbi ! (Master) where 
dwellest thou?" He invited them to his abode, and they 
spent the rest of the day in hearing words which convinced 
them that he was the Messiah, and which led one of them, 
Andrew, to seek his own brother Simon that same evening, 
and bring him to Jesus. Simon was received with a saluta- 
tion which proved that Jesus already knew him, and with a 
new surname, at once descriptive of his character, and sym- 
bolical of the truth, that Christ is the rock on which his 
Church is founded. This name was, in the vernacular, Ce- 
phas, answering to the Greek Peter, and signifying a stone 
or rock. That the other of the two first disciples of our Lord 
was John, can scarcely admit of question. The modest re- 
serve, which keeps back his own name, is consistent with his 
usual manner of naming himself as " that other disciple," " the 
disciple whom Jesus loved." The naming of the other earli- 
est disciples, but not of John, combined with the internal evi- 
dence of his presence at the scenes related in the first few 
chapters of his Gospel, puts the matter beyond a question. 
This early introduction to our Saviour places him at once in 
that position of a constant and close companion, which gives 
so remarkable a character to his Gospel. Nor can Ave refrain 
from imagining how, while Andre w had no sooner heard 
enough from Jesus to work conviction in his mind, he hasten- 
ed to seek his brother w T ith the news, " We have found the 
Messiah !" — John remained sitting at the Saviour's feet, and 
drinking in the first mysteries of his kingdom. Thus was 
that kingdom inaugurated upon earth, by the secret converse 
of Jesus with three fishermen, who had come to be baptized 
by John, in some rude hut reared on the banks of Jordan ; 
but those three already formed the Christian Church. 24 

It is very characteristic of the gradual course of Christ's 
revelation, that he withdrew on the next day, from the crowds 

24 John i. 35-42. 



A..D. 27. Miracle at Carta. 209 

assembled about John, to Galilee. But first he called another 
disciple, Philip, a man of Bethsaida, the native place of An- 
drew and Peter. 25 Philip, like Andrew, sought to share the 
blessing with a friend. This was Nathanael, of Cana in 
Galilee, the same who is afterward called Bartholomew, 86 
whose zeal for the purity of Judaism, unlike that of the mere 
formalists, was adorned by deep and sincere devotion. His 
celebrated objection — " Can any good come out of Nazareth ?" 
— betrayed the prejudice even of a Galilean against the de- 
spised village of Christ ; but all such feelings vanished at 
once, when Jesus not only accosted him as " an Israelite in- 
deed, in whom there was no guile," but assured Nathanael that 
he had seen him in his wonted place of secret prayer, under 
the shade of a fig-tree, where no human eye could see him. 
This proof of Christ's omniscience called forth a confession 
which forms a climax to those made by the other disciples. 
Andrew and his companion had acknowledged him as their 
Master, and the former had told Peter that they had found 
the Christ ; Philip had recognized in Jesus of Nazareth the 
son of Joseph, him who had been foretold by Moses and the 
prophets • and now Nathanael gives him the full titles of the 
Messiah: " Rabbi! Thou art the Son of God! Thou art the 
King of Israel /" His faith was rewarded by the promise 
of higher exhibitions of Christ's glory in the ministry of the 
angels from heaven. 27 

§ 7. The next day but one after the calling of Nathanael, a 
marriage-feast was held at Cana, 27b There appears to have 
been a twofold reason for our Saviour's presence. His moth- 
er was one of the guests ; and it seems probable that Mary 
had gone from Nazareth, while Jesus went direct to Cana, at 
the invitation of Nathanael, who was a native of that place, 

25 The exact position of Beth-saida i for Cana. 1. The traditional site is 
(=" house of fish") is uncertain. It ' at Kefr Ken)>a, a small village about 
was on the west side of the lake, in ; 4£ miles N.W. of Nazareth. It now 
the near neighborhood of Capernaum contains only the ruins of a church 
and Chorazin. (Sec p. 214, note 33). | said to stand" over the house in which 
It must be distinguished from a sec- j the miracle was performed, and — 
ond Bethsaida on the east side of the I doubtless much older — the fountain 
lake, where the 5000 were fed. See ; from which the water for the miracle 
Diet, of Bible, art. Bethsaida. was brought. 2. Dr. Robinson, how- 

26 Matt. x. 18 ; Mark iii. 18 ; Luke ! ever, places Cana at a village situated 
vi. 14 ; Acts i. 13. BapOoXoj.ia.loQ is ! farther north, about 5 miles north of 
a patronymic, the son of Talmai (2 j Seffurieh (Sepphoris) and 9 of Naza 



K. xiii. 37). St. John alone uses 
his proper name Nathanael, 
27 John i. 43-51. 



reth, near the present Jefat, the Jo- 
tapata of the Jewish wars. This 
village still bears the name of Kana- 



Two sites hare been assigned i el-jeliL 



210 Oar Saviour's Early Ministry. Chap. VII 

and who would naturally invite his friend Philip, together 
with his fellow-townsmen Peter and Andrew, and their friend, 
the remaining and unnamed disciple. That all were present 
is clearly implied in the statement, " Both Jesus was called, 
and his disciples, to the marriage ;" and this is most impor- 
tant as establishing the fact, that our Saviour's first miracle 
was wrought in the presence of these " witnesses chosen be- 
fore," and especially of John, who alone of the four evangelists 
records the incident. 

This unexpected influx of guests, though welcomed with 
the hospitality of the East, entailed serious inconvenience on 
the bridegroom's limited resources ; for the family seems to 
have been of the same lowly station as our Lord's. The wine, 
which it had doubtless required an effort to provide, ran short. 
Mary, who now appears again, for the first time since those 
early events, all of which she had " kept in her heart " and 
" pondered in her mind," thought she saw the opportunity to 
call forth the divine power of her Son. That this was in- 
volved in her words, " They have no wine" (and not, as some 
say, a hint of the propriety of his withdrawing, with his dis- 
ciples, which, by the bye, would have been an insult to the 
host), seems clear from his reply, " Woman, what have I to do 
with thee ? Mine hour is not yet come !" The original con- 
veys nothing of bluntness by the first word, the same by which 
Jesus addressed his mother in the very climax of his tender- 
ness upon the cross ; but yet the choice of it, instead of 
" Mother," is a sign of that new relation which appears 
throughout the whole scene. It is hard to treat the subject 
with plainness and yet with reverence ; but the difficulty is 
one of expression rather than of understanding. The man Je- 
sus had, in childhood and youth, been subject to his parents; 
but such subjection was no longer becoming to Jesus the 
Christ of God. There seems to have been, in the hint of 
Mary, something of that error which is carried to extremity 
by the Mariolaters, when they pray the Virgin to command 
her Son to give them their wishes. It was needful that our 
Saviour should correct this error, which affected the motive, 
the object, and the time for the exercise of his miraculous 
power. " What is it to me and thee ? 28 Mine hour is not 
yet come " — is, in effect, a declaration that he must not use 
his divine powers at the promptings even of a parent, nor for 
any private object, nor till the fit season, of which the Spirit 
within him was sole judge. But what is the " hour" that ho 

28 Tt tuoi icai (joi : 



A.D. 27, Character of the Miracle. 211 

speaks of as " not yet come P" The special use of this phrase 
elsewhere, for the great crisis of his work, is apt to make us 
forget that its primary sense is more general, " My season or 
opportunity is not yet come." But that interpretation is too 
narrow, which makes it refer to the wine not being yet ex- 
hausted. It is a rebuke of the impatience, which would not 
wait his time, though followed by the condescension of per- 
forming the miracle asked for, as the first example of those 
which should follow in due season. Mary received the rebuke 
without discouragement ; and, as the friend of the family, she 
commands the servants to hold themselves at his disposal. 

The details of the miracle are too familiar to need relation ; 
but we must not omit to notice the points in which it forms 
a type of all Christ's miracles : — " This did Jesus, as the be- 
ginning of his miracles /" not only the first in time, but the 
inauguration of the great principle of all his miracles, at 
once to " make manifest his glory " and to cause " his disci- 
ples to believe on him." We may observe, in passing, that 
these words dispose, once for all, of the many childish legends 
about our Lord's miracles as a child. 

We can not here discuss the whole doctrine of miracles. 
It is enough to observe that a miracle is a plain and manifest 
exercise by a man, or by God at the call of a man, of those 
powers which belong only to the Creator and Lord of nature ; 
and this for the declared object of attesting that a divine 
mission is given to that man. It is not the iconder, the ex- 
ception to common experience, that constitutes the miracle, 
as is assumed both in the popular use of the word, and by 
most objectors against miracles. No phenomenon in nature, 
however unusual, no event in the course of God's providence, 
however unexpected, is a miracle, unless it can be traced to 
the agency of man (including prayer under the term agency), 
and unless it be put forth as proof of a divine mission. Prod- 
igies and special providences are not miracles. On the other 
hand, it is a mere petitio principii to argue against all mira- 
cles, on the ground that if we could see the secret manner of 
God's working, we might find them to be consistent with 
some higher law unknown to our experience. For it is not 
so much the violation of law, as the manifest application of it 
to a special occasion, that attests the immediate power of God. 
As has been beautifully observed, in the case before us, there 
is nothing wonderful in the mere fact that Christ could turn 
water into wine, for he does the same every autumn by the 
vital chemistry of nature. There is nothing wonderful in the 
means, for all creation was effected by his word : " He spake, 



212 Our Saviour's Early Ministry. Chap. VII 

and it was done." The miracle consists in the circumstances 
which, by the direct utterance of that word, and the absence 
of those intermediate agencies, isolate his power for our plain- 
er perception and conviction. It is our blindness that fails 
to see that power in the laws of nature : it is his mercy that 
reveals it in their apparent interruption. 

These principles, which are more or less accepted by the 
common sense of all mankind, as Ave see in the alleged heathen 
miracles, and the pretensions of magic, were familiar to the 
Jews through the miracles of the Old Covenant, and formed 
the ground of their faith in Moses, and therefore the basis of 
their religion. Their Rabbis distinguished true miracles 
from false by six chief tests : — (1) The object must be worthy 
of the Divine Author ; (2) The performance must be public, 
and (3) submitted to the senses, so that men might judge of 
their reality ; (4) The mode of working must be indepejident 
of second causes ; (5) They must be attested by contempora- 
neous evidence, (6) recorded by a monument, or in some form 
equally permanent. It may be added, as a condition highly 
satisfactory, though not perhaps essential, that the occasion 
should be natural, unsought, and purely incidental : — a condi- 
tion strikingly fulfilled in the miracles of Christ, and as strik- 
ingly violated by the elaborate preparations and cunning ex- 
cuses of pretenders to miraculous power. These tests, laid 
down by the Jews themselves, bound them to believe Christ 
if he fulfilled them ; and their manifest fairness makes them 
equally binding on all men. How perfectly they were satis- 
fied in the miracle before us, as the type of all the rest, we need 
only indicate very briefly. (1) Besides the benevolent pur- 
pose manifest, with scarcely an exception, 29 in the miracles of 
Him who " went about doing good," we can trace in most 
cases a deeper meaning, often symbolical of the highest 
truths. In the present instance, he not only provided a quan- 
tity of wine much beyond the present necessity, and sanctified 
its moderate enjoyment, but he gave a lesson of his own cre- 
ative power. (2) The miracle was performed with exactly 
that kind and degree of publicity which is the most satisfac- 
tory ; not on a public stage, before an audience excited by 
vague curiosity, prepared to keep each other and the perf orm- 
er in countenance, and already for the most part indicating 
their sympathy by their presence, while close criticism is im- 

29 The one exception, that of the j lesson to the by-standers well worthy 
barren fig-tree, where judgment seems : of the Divine Author of the Mira- 
to take the place of mercy, gave a | cle. 



A.D. 27- Character of the Miracle. 213 

possible ; but in the midst of a moderate number of persons, 
sitting familiarly together, most of them strangers, but a few 
already chosen to be fit witnesses of all his works. (3) The 
subjection of the result of the miracle to the senses of those 
present, first in the pouring out of the water, and then in the 
form of the excellent wine, which they continued to enjoy 
during the seven days of the feast, is rendered the more strik- 
ing by what science has taught us of the arts of conjurors in 
like cases. 30 Here is no possible room for the chemistry of 
colored fluids or the preparation of glasses to impose upon 
the taste. The truth of the scene is the more vivid from the 
tinge of humor with which the friend chosen to preside over 
the feast (the thaliarchus) rallies the unconscious bridegroom. 
(4) The independence of all second causes was secured by the 
nature of the vessels used, those set apart for purification, and 
therefore never even tinged with any thing but the purest 
water. (5) The contemporary evidence was abundantly fur- 
nished by the guests, and especially the disciples ; and (6) its 
permanent record is handed down to us in the Gospel of St. 
John. 

But for that law of our weak nature, which makes repeti- 
tion needful for permanent impression, this miracle alone 
would have been enough to establish our Saviour's claims. It 
produced that effect upon his disciples. They had come to 
him before, with a sort of general trust that they had found 
the Christ ; but that feeling was now formed into complete 
conviction. It had still to be ripened into a living principle, 
strong enough to conquer all doubts, for this is not the last 
time we are told that " his disciples believed in him." Thus 
does their experience teach the progressive character of true 
faith. 

ISTor must we fail to notice that our Saviour made this first 
public " manifestation of his glory " while he was satisfying 
the claims of social duty, and in this resjDect also " made like 
unto his brethren." We have seen him in the bosom of the 
family, now we behold him in the circle of society, blessing 
both, and fulfilling the laws of both, even the law of innocent 
pleasure ; and interposing, by his divine power at a moment 
of pressure, to supply a want that was not one of the mere 

30 It is hardly possible to overrate I Brewster's Natural Magic and Rob- 
the services to the cause of truth | ert Houdin's Memoirs. — On the meas- 
which have been rendered in this ' ure employed, see the Old Testa- 



way, not only by men of science, but 
by professors of the arts of mock- 
magic ; for example, by Sir David 



ment History, Appendix on Weights 
and Measures. 



214 Our Saviour's Early Ministry. Chap. VII 

necessaries of life. " The Son of Man came eating and drink- 
ing." 

In the fact that his first feast was a marriage feast, we see 
him sanctifying the divine ordinance of marriage, nay, even the 
festivities connected with it. This marked sanction, thus 
early in his course, may be regarded as a substitute for his 
own literal conformity to his brethren in the marriage state. 
It exhibited his perfect sympathy with a condition of life 
which his peculiar lot forbade his accepting : his only bride is 
the whole Church, which shares his love and life in glory ; but 
no mortal bosom might divide the burden of his humiliation 
upon earth : 

"Living, He own'd no nuptial vow, 
No bower to Fancy dear : 
Love's very self — for Him no need 
To nurse, on earth, the heavenly seed : 
Yet comfort in His eye we read 
For bridal joy and fear." 3I 

Nor ought we to pass unnoticed the views which some ex- 
positors have put forth concerning the mystic meaning of the 
miracle. The first miracle of Moses, the minister of condem- 
nation, was to turn water — the all-pervading medium of the 
wants of life — into blood ; but Christ's first miracle was to 
turn the same medium into wine, the quickener and gladdener 
of life. 

§ 8. The marriage at Cana concludes what may be called 
the more private opening of our Saviour's ministry. " He 
came unto his own," — first in the narrow circle of the few 
friends connected with his family; and all that follows justi- 
fies our applying to this narrow circle the statement, that 
" his own received him not ;" and St. John expressly states 
that "neither did his brethren believe on him," when they 
taunted him with the comparative privacy of his miracles. 32 
Even his mother's faith seems thus far to have had in it more 
of nature than of grace ; and, for the rest, his five disciples 
were his only converts. With them, and his mother, and his 
brethren, he retired to Capernaum, on the west shore of the 
Lake of G-alilee, a city which he more than once selected for 
his residence in preference to Nazareth. 33 This abode of the 
first disciples with Jesus at Capernaum marks the intimate 

3] Keble: Christian Year: Matri- | nesareth has been remarkably fulfill- 
mony. 32 John vii. 3-5. ed. The spots which lay claim to its 

33 The site of Capernaum is uncer- j site are : 1. Khan Minyeh, a mound of 
tain ; and the doom which our Lord ! ruins which takes its name from an 
pronounced against it and the other j old khan hard by. This mound is 
unbelieving cities of the plain of Gen- I situated close upon the sea-shore at 



Chap. VII. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



215 



personal nature of their connection with him. and implies the 
incessant opportunities which that intercourse afforded for 
their learning of him the truths of which they were to be wit- 
nesses. It must not be confounded w T ith that first public ap- 
pearance at Capernaum which succeeds his baptism in the or- 
der of the first three Evangelists. 34 " They continued there 
not many days ;" for a reason which presently appears ; " the 
Jews' passover was at hand." 35 This notice fixes the mar- 
riage at Cana to a time not long before the Passover; an 
epoch from which w T e can reckon back, within pretty narrow 
limits of error, to our Saviour's temptation and his baptism, 
making in all about three months from the time when " he be- 
gan to be about thirty years of age." 



the north-western extremity of the 
plain (now El Ghuweir). 2. Three 
miles north of Khan Minyeh is the 
other claimant, Tell Hum, — ruins of 
walls and foundations covering a 
space of half a mile long by a quarter 
wide, on a point of the shore project- 
ing into the lake and backed by a 



very gently rising ground. Khan- 
Minyeh, Et-Tabighah, and Tell Hum, 
are all, without doubt, ancient sites, 
but it is impossible to say which of 
them represents Capernaum, which 
Chorazin, or which Bethsaida. 

34 See Chapter VIII., §§ 9, 11. 

35 John ii. 12, 13. 



NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



(A.) THE PUBLICANS. 

The Greek word (reXaivai) trans- 
lated " Publicans,'' describes the j>or- 
titores, or inferior officers employed 
as collectors of the Roman revenue. 
But the Latin word Publicum, from 
which the English of the A.V. has 
been taken, was applied to a higher 
order of men. The Roman senate 
farmed the vectigalia (direct taxes) 
and the portoria (customs, including 
the octroi on goods carried into or 
out of cities) to capitalists who un- 
dertook to pay a given sum into the 
treasury (jmblicuiri), and hence re- 
ceived the name of publicani. Con- 
tracts of this kind fell naturally into 
the hands of the cquites, as the richest 



class of Romans. In the provinces 
were managing directors ; and under 
them were the portitores, the actual 
custom-house officers. The latter 
were commonly natives of the prov- 
ince in which they were stationed. 
The word teXwvcii, which etymolog- 
ically might have been used of the 
publicani properly so called, was user? 
popularly, and in the N. T. exclu- 
sively, of the portitores. 

The system was essentially a vi- 
cious one. The publicani encouraged 
their agents, the portitores, in the 
most vexatious or fraudulent exac- 
tions. They overcharged whenever 
they had an opportunity (Luke iii. 
13). They brought false charges of 
smuggling in tiie hope of extorting 



216 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. VH 



hush-money (Luke xix. 8). The 
employment brought out all the be- 
setting vices of the Jewish character. 
The strong feeling of many Jews 
as to the absolute unlawfulness of 
paying tribute at all made matters 
worse. The Scribes who discussed 
the question (Matt. xxii. 15) for the 
most part answered it in the negative. 
In addition to their other faults, 
accordingly, the Publicans of the N. 
T. were regarded as traitors and 
apostates, defiled by their frequent 
intercourse with the heathen, willing 
tools of the oppressor. They were 
classed with sinners (Matt. ix. 11, xi. 
19), with harlots (Matt. xxi. 31, 32), 
with the heathen (Matt, xviii. 17). 
To eat and drink " with Publicans," 
seems to the Pharisaic mind incom- 
patible with the character of a recog- 
nized Rabbi (Matt. ix. 11). They 
spoke in their scorn of our Lord as 
the friend of Publicans (Matt. xi. 
19). 

(B.)— PLACE OF OUR LORD'S 
BAPTISM. 

The place of our Lord's baptism 
is not stated expressly. What is 
stated is, (1) that as St. John was 
a native of some " city in the hill- 
country of Judcea " (Luke i. 39), so 
his preaching, commencing "in the 
wilderness of Judeea " (Matt. iii. 1), 
embraced "all the country about 
Jordan " (Luke iii. 3), and drew per- 
sons from Galilee, as far off as Naz- 
areth (Mark i. 9) and Bethsaida 
(John i. 35, 40, 44), as well as from 
Jerusalem ; (2) that the baptism of 
the multitude from Jerusalem and 
Judaea preceded that of our Lord 
(Matt. iii. 6, 13 ; Mark i. 5, 9); (3) 
that our Lord's baptism was also 
distinct from that of the said multi- 
tude (Luke iii. 21) ; and (4) that 
he came from Nazareth in Galilee, 
and not from Jerusalem or Judasa, 
to be baptized. The inference from 



all which would seem to be, (1) that 
the first (to 7rpu>Tov) baptisms of St. 
John took place at the lower ford 
near Jericho, to which not only he 
himself, a native of Judasa, but all Je- 
rusalem and Judasa likewise, would 
naturally resort as being the nearest. 
(2) That his second baptisms were 
at the upper ford, or Bethabara (John 
i. 28), whither he had arrived in the 
course of his preachings, and were 
designed for the inhabitants of the 
more northern parts of the Holy 
Land, among whom was Jesus, fuom 
Galilee. (3) That his third and 
last baptisms were in the neighbor- 
hood of JEnon and Salim (John iii. 
23), still further to the north. Thus 
St. John would seem to have moved 
upward gradually toward Galilee, 
the seat of Herod's jurisdiction, by 
whom he was destined to be appre- 
hended and executed; while our 
Lord, coming from Galilee, probably 
by way of Samaria, as in the converse 
case, would seem to have met him 
half way, and to have been baptized 
at Bethabara, in the ford nearest to 
that locality — a ford which had been 
the scene of the first recorded cross- 
ing. The tradition which asserts 
Christ to have been baptized in the 
ford near Jericho, has been obliged 
to invent a Bethabara near that spot, 
of which no trace exists in history, 
to appear consistent with Scripture. 

Bethabara, that is, the house of 
ford or passage, described as "be- 
yond," that is, on the eastern side 
of the Jordan (John i. 28), Avas prob- 
ably the upper fords, higher up than 
Jericho, where the little river Jabbok 
(Zerka) enters the Jordan. But the 
name of Bethabara in John i. 28, is 
doubtful. All the oldest MSS. have 
not Bethabara, but Bethany, a read- 
ing which Origen states to have ob- 
tained in almost all the copies of his 
time, though altered by him in his 
edition of the Gospel on topographic' 
al grounds. In favor of Bethabara 



Chap. VII. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



21? 



are, (a) the extreme improbability of 
so familiar a name as Bethany being 
changed by copyists intoone so unfa- 
miliar as Bethabara, while the reverse 
— the change from an unfamiliar to 
a familiar name — is of frequent oc- 
currence. Qi) The fact that Origen, 
while admitting that the majority 
of MSS. were in favor of Bethany, 
decided notwithstanding for Beth- 
abara. (c) That Bethabara was still 
known in the days of Eusebius, and 
greatly resorted to by persons desir- 
ous of baptism. It must not, how- 
ever, be overlooked that if Bethany 
be accepted, the definition " beyond 
Jordan" still remains, and therefore 
another place must be intended than j 
the well-known residence of Lazarus. 
JEnon is the Greek form of the 
Chaldee sEnavan, " fountains ; " 
hence we read in the evangelist, that 
" John was baptizing in JEnon near 
to Salim, because there was much 
Water there." It was evidently west 



of the Jordan (comp. John iii. 22 with 
26, and with i. 28) ; but beyond this 
there is no statement in the narrative 
itself fixing the situation. The only 
direct testimony we possess is that of 
Eusebius and Jerome, who both affirm 
unhesitatingly (Onom. "JEnon") 
that it existed in their day near the 
Jordan, eight Koman miles south of 
Scythopolis. The name of Salim 
has been discovered by Mr. Van de 
Velde (Syr. $• Pal. ii. 345, 6) in a 
position exactly in accordance with 
the notice of Eusebius, viz., six En- 
glish miles south of Beisdn (Scythopo- 
lis), and two miles west of the Jordan. 
It fulfills also the statement of the 
text, that the place contained abun- 
dance of water. "The brook of 
Wcxay Chusneh runs close to it, a 
splendid fountain gushes out beside 
the Wely, and rivulets wind about in 
all directions. ... Of few places 
in Palestine could it so truly be said, 
' Here is much water.'" 



fi 










Sea of Galilee. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FIRST YEAR OF CHRIST S MINISTRY. FROM HIS FIRST PASSOVER 
TO HIS SECOND VISIT TO JERUSALEM, PROBABLY AT THE PASS- 
OVER. A.D. 27-28. 

§ 1. Beginning of Christ's ministry at Jerusalem at the Passover. § 2. The 
First Passover. Christ purifies the Temple. Contrast with his last 
appearance there. The Jews demand a sign. His prediction concern- 
ing the Temple of His Body. His converts at this Passover ; and his 
reserve in trusting them. § 3. Christ and Nicodemus. § 4. Jesus 
leaves Jerusalem for the country of Judaea, and gains converts, who are 
baptized by his disciples. John's final testimony to Christ. § 5. John 
rebukes Herod Antipas for Herodias's sake, and is cast into prison. §. G. 
Christ retires to Galilee. The Samaritan woman and her fellow-towns- 
men of Sychar. § 7. Jesus in Galilee. The prophet without honor in 
his own country. Difficulty as to the Gospel Harmony at this point. 
§ 8. Second visit of Jesus to Cana. His second Galilean miracle : heal- 
ing of the courtier's son. § 9. Beginning of the Gospel from Galilee: its 
significance. Narrative of the first three JEvangelists derived from Gal- 
ilean sources. Their external means of information and their inspira- 
tion. § 10. Christ began by proclaiming the kingdom of heaven as at 
hand. Distinction between this and John the Baptist's preaching. He 
teaches in the Synagogues. Proclaims himself at Nazareth as the 



A.D. 27. Beginning of Christ's Ministry. 219 

Messiah, and is rejected by his fellow-townsmen, § 11. Jesus at Ca- 
pernaum. His ministry by the Lake of Galilee. Final call of Peter 
and Andrew, James and John. Its relation to their iirst call. § 12. A 
Sabbath in the synagogue at Capernaum. The demoniac healed. The 
question of demoniacal possession. The devil confesses Christ, but is 
silenced by him. Fame of the miracle. Healing of Peter's wife's 
mother. Miracles in the evening. § 13. Christ leaves Capernaum 
next morning. His First Galilean Circuit. Healing of the leper. § 14.^ 
Jesus returns to Capernaum. Healing of the paralytic in presence of- 
the Pharisees and Doctors. Christ claims the divine prerogative of 
forgiving sin. §15. The call of Matthew. Various examples of Christ's 
miracles. § 16. The "Feast of the Jews" of John v., probably the 
Second Passover of Christ's ministry. He goes up to Jerusalem. Heal- 
ing of the cripple at Bethesda. The Jews charge Christ with Sabbath- 
breaking. His first great discourse in vindication of his divine au- 
thority. 



§ 1. That Christ should begin his public ministry at Jeru- 
salem was equally in accordance with the fitness of the case, 
and with the expectations raised by prophecy : — " Jehovah, 
whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple" Nor was 
there any reason so suitable for his appearance there, as the 
Feast of Passover, which presented the most striking type of 
him, and at which the Jews were gathered, not only from all 
the land, but from the countries of the Dispersion. Hence the 
Passovers during our Saviour's ministry are most important 
epochs, and, indeed, they furnish the only general chronologic- 
al data for its course. But we are met, in the outset, by the 
strange fact that, with one exception, these Passovers are men- 
tioned only by St. John. All the Evangelists relate the events 
of that last great Passover, to which Jesus went up to suffer 
as the true Paschal Lamb. But, with this exception, the first 
three Evangelists confine their narrative to our Lord's minis- 
try in Galilee, though not without incidental allusions to his 
visits to Judaea. Immediately after his baptism, they record 
the beginning of his ministry in Galilee ; and the word " re- 
turned," in Matthew and Luke, might be taken for his first re- 
turn from the banks of the Jordan, but for the note of time, 
and the motive of the journey, supplied by Matthew and Mark, 
*' when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison." This 
agrees with the beginning of St. John's 4th chapter, and inter- 
poses all the events recorded in his first three chapters. In 
the same way, the visits to Judaea mentioned in John v. and 
vii. are passed over by the other Evangelists, 1 who however 
imply, on various occasions, the not unfrequent exercise of 

1 Unless the allusion in Luke 5x. 51 refers to the latter journey. 



220 



First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VIII 



Christ's ministry in Jerusalem 2 and Judaea. And this is ac- 
counted for by two facts, which must never be lost sight of in 
studying the Gospels, that the first three Evangelists wrote 
from Galilean sources of information, and that the Gospel 
of St. John was supplemental to theirs. 

In these two facts we have the key to the diversities be- 
tween the first three Evangelists and the fourth, respecting 
both the scene and the duration of the public ministry of 
Christ. 3 

§ 2. Returning to this first Passover of a.d. 27, the first, 
that is, in our Saviour's ministry, for he had doubtless gone 
up regularly to Jerusalem since the recorded visit at the age 
of twelve, we see him at once exercising the highest authority 
of a prophet and a reformer, by cleansing the temple. The 
selfish spirit which had prevailed since the Captivity ? in place 
of the open idolatries of earlier times, had made the very serv- 
ices of the sanctuary the occasion for profaning it. Sheep 
and oxen and doves were sold within the sacred precincts for 
the sacrifices, and money-changers traded there upon the con- 
venience of those who came to pay the half-shekel tax for di- 
vine worship. Jesus drove them from the temple with an au- 
thority of which his " scourge of small cords " was but the 
sign. The indignation with which he overthrew the tables of 
the money-changers forms a marked contrast to his gentler 
command to the sellers of doves to " take these things hence." 
Still more striking is the contrast between his admonition, 
" Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise," and 
his denunciation of the same conduct on his last visit to the 
temple : — "It is written, my house shall be called a house of 
prayer for all nations ; but ye have made it a den of thieves." 
Those critics, who suppose the two narratives to be a com 
fused account of one event, are insensible to the transition, 
which the renewed and confirmed selfishness of the offenders 
forced upon our Saviour, from the reformer urging amend- 
ment, to the judge passing a final condemnation. 4 

His proceedings were watched by his disciples and the 
Jews with equal astonishment. The former, reminded of the 
words of one of those Psalms which most clearly referred to 
the Messiah, beheld a new proof of his divine authority. 5 The 



2 See Matt. iv. 25, xv. 1, xxiii. 37; 
Luke x. 38. 

3 See Notes and Illustrations (A), 
The Scene op our Lord's Minis- 
try ; (B), Duration of our Lord's 
Ministry, 



4 John ii. 13-17. 

5 Ps. lxix. 9. See the whole psalm, 
for its pre-eminently Messianic char< 
acter. 



A.D. 27. His First Passover. 221 

Jews were sensible of the same inference, but they resisted its 
admission. Their very demand for a sign of his authority 
proved that they understood the claim. His answer looked 
forward, at this very commencement of his course, to its high- 
est consummation, while it rebuked them more keenly than 
ever by predicting their share in the end. 6 This was the first 
occasion on which the Jews made the demand, which they so 
often repeated, not of evidence to justify belief — this was 
abundantly supplied by the very spirit of his proceedings, as 
well as by the miracles which we are presently told that he 
performed — -but of a supernatural sign to compel belief ; that 
foolish demand which is made in every age by hearts hardened 
against moral evidence, and which equally fails to convince 
them. Jesus replied, as on other occasions, by refusing the 
demand made in a spirit of defiance, but at the same time in- 
timating that the sign would one day be given, and that to 
their confusion. For this end their evil spirit toward him 
was already preparing. They who demanded to know his au- 
thority for rebuking their profanation of God's house would 
be carried on by that evil spirit, not only to courses involving 
the destruction of that house, but to the destruction of the 
true temple of which that was but the shrine, the " house not 
made with hands," which formed in his person the dwelling- 
place of God. And when their rage had achieved that tri- 
umph, he would give them the clearest sign of his authority, 
by raising up again in three days that edifice, whose glory in- 
finitely surpassed the forty years' work of Herod on Mount 
Zion. " He spake of the temple of his body." His words had 
an apparent sense, which was all that their carnal minds could 
see at present ; and even this they willfully perverted by the 
alteration of one word, in order to make out a charge of blas- 
phemy against him. He said, " Destroy this temple " — in the 
tone of indignant remonstrance, like, " Fill ye up the measure 
of your fathers." And the very means they used to fulfill his 
words was by suborning false witnesses to make him say, " I 
will destroy it." Hidden beneath this apparent sense, was 
not only the prediction of the destruction of the temple by the 
Romans, as the only cure for the pollutions they had brought 
upon it ; but the deeper spiritual prophecy of his own death 
and resurrection, the end of which would be the establishment 
of the true temple in heaven ; where the seer of Patmos beheld 
no visible temple, " for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
are the temple of it." 7 Even his disciples did not perceive 

6 John ii. 18-22. 7 Rev. xxi. 23. 



222 First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VIII. 

this meaning till after his resurrection. " They remembered," 
as soon as they saw his zeal for his Father's house, the Script- 
ure which marked this as a character of the Christ; but it 
needed reflection after the event, to call to their remembrance 
the true import of his life and sayings ; and it is that remem- 
brance, recalled by the Holy Spirit, that St. John has recorded 
for our learning. It is another indication of the progressive 
character of their faith, that only then " did they believe the 
Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said." 

These deeds of authority, and the miracles which Jesus 
performed at the Passover, gained him for the first time many 
converts — converts at least in outward profession. But here 
we meet with one of the most striking and affecting records 
in his whole history. "Many believed (or trusted) in his 
name ; but Jesus did not trust himself to them." It is diffi- 
cult to express the antithesis involved in the repetition of the 
word, which our version wholly loses. But it is not difficult 
to read the lesson of the reserve with which Christ treated 
these first converts of his public ministry. A reason is given, 
which both explains his conduct and testifies to his omniscient 
power of discerning the hearts of men. He saw the elements 
of instability in some, and of hypocrisy and perhaps even 
treachery in others, which would surely bring disgrace on his 
cause ; and he would not own them, or attach himself to them, 
in such a manner as to imperil that cause through them. 
Probably these converts, in their carnal and selfish zeal, be- 
gan with the mistake which was afterward repeated by so 
many of his followers, by looking for an independent king- 
dom ; and he would not commit himself to them as king of 
the Jews. 8 

§ 3. Bat there were a few in whom he did place confidence. 
The type of these is the ruler Nicodemus, a man by no means 
free from the prejudices of his nation and his order, but show- 
ing the first elements of true faith in his hearty recognition of 
the divine authority attested by the miracles of Christ. 9 This 
conviction, Avhich many of his fellow-rulers shared, he had the 
honesty to avow : — " Rabbi, ice know that thou art a teacher 
sent from God ;" and, though there was something of proud 
reserve, as well as of moral cowardice, in the manner of his 
coming to Christ, his sincerity contrasted very favorably with 
the hollow demonstrations which Jesus had rejected. To him 
the Lord unfolded for the first time the deepest mysteries of 
his kingdom : the need of regeneration to enter it ; the death 

8 John ii. 23-25. ° John iii. I. 2. 



A.D. 27. 



Discourse with Nicodemus. 



223 



of the Son of Man and only-begotten Son of God for the sal- 
vation of all who should believe in him ; and the condemna- 
tion of the world for its willful unbelief. In this discourse the 
Three Persons of the Trinity are all revealed in their working 
for man's redemption : the Father loving the world so as even 
to give his Son to die for man ; the Son coming down from 
heaven to be lifted up on the cross, and ascending to heaven 
again ; and the Spirit renewing the hearts of those who should 
enter the kingdom of heaven. The detailed exposition of our 
Lord's discourses, however, does not fall within the plan of 
this work. 10 

§ 4. Our Lord's discernment of the premature and unstable 
professions of the many who believed on him would be a suf- 
ficient reason for his retirement from Jerusalem to the coun- 
try districts of Judaea, where he gradually, but surely, gathered 
converts, who were baptized, not by himself, but by his disci- 
ples. 11 His converts soon exceeded those of John, who still 
continued to baptize,' and who was now at iEnon, near Salim, 
a spot which numerous streamlets make very convenient for 
an encampment. 12 The people were now perplexed by some- 
thing like an appearance of rivalry between the two new 
teachers ; and one of the Jews, 13 who had engaged in a con- 
troversy upon purifying with John's disciples, came to him to 
ask, seemingly in a somewhat taunting spirit, how it was that 
he, to whom he had borne witness near the Jordan, was ap- 
parently superseding him in his ministry. John took the oc- 
casion to bear to Christ a final testimony, no less remarkable 
for its explicit statements of Gospel truth than for its pro- 
found humility and self-renunciation. Reminding both parties 
to the controversy that he had always insisted on the superior- 
ity of Christ to himself, as being the very purpose of his mis- 
sion, he marks this as the divinely appointed order : — " He 
must increase, I must decrease." 14 And to this law he not 
merely submits, but derives from it unbounded satisfaction. 
Likening himself to the bridegroom's friend (or paranympli) 
at a wedding, rejoicing at the bridegroom's voice, while Christ 
rejoiced over his pure spouse, the Church about to be re- 



13 John iii. 1-21. 

11 John iii. 22 : comp. John iv. 2. 
The word " tarried " seems to imply a 
considerable time. 

12 John iii. 23, 24. See p. 216. The 
words "John was not yet cast into 
prison" form the only notice of the 
Baptist's imprisonment in St. John's 



Gospel ; a mark of its supplemental 
character. 

13 John iii. 25. The best MSS. 
have the singular, fiE-d 'LovSaiov (not 
'lovSaiuv). u John iii. 30. So 

must (Set) is used in Matt, xxvi. 54 ; 
Markviii. 31, ix. 11, 12; Luke xxiii. 
1 7, xxiv. 7; 44 ; John xx. 9 ; Acts 1. & 



224 



First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VIII 



deemed, he declares, "This my joy therefore is fulfilled." 
Though himself destined to remain outside of the Christian 
Church, he concludes his testimony by pointing to his disci- 
ples and all his hearers the way within it. The limits of his 
own mission, strictly denned from the first, were now reached ; 
and he sends them, for the measureless gifts of God's Spirit, 
to Him who had come from heaven and was above all, promis- 
ing everlasting life if they believed on the Son, and denounc- 
ing the abiding wrath of God on unbelievers. 15 

§ 5. Having thus stood faithful against the greatest temp- 
tation, probably, that ever assailed a mere man, the same 
temptation to which an angel had yielded, of rivalry with the 
Son of God, John could carry a good conscience into the 
prison to which he was soon afterward consigned. Thus far 
we have only seen John preaching and baptizing in the wil- 
derness and near the Jordan; but it would seem that, as he 
advanced up the river into Galilee, the interest which Herod 
Antipas always retained in the Jewish religion led him to 
wish to hear the prophet. John appeared before him in a 
guise unlike the delicate attire of the courtier, with his wild 
Nazarite locks, and his prophet's mantle of camel's-hair, such 
as Elijah had when he showed himself to Ahab. In the 
court, as in the wilderness, he went straight to the object of 
his mission, repentance and reformation from positive sin. 
Herod had married Herodias, the self-divorced wife of his 
half-brother Philip ; and, regardless alike of the king's favor 
and the woman's vengeance, he said, " It is not lawful for thee 
to have her !" For this offense, Herod, instigated by Herodi- 
as, and casting to the w T inds all the better feelings that had 
led him to send for John, added to all the crimes which he 
had had such an opportunity to renounce, that of shutting up 
John in prison. How reluctant he was to proceed further, 
both from respect for John and fear of the people, who held 
the Baptist for a prophet, and how his conscience troubled 
him for this step, w T e shall soon see. 16 

§ 6. Meanwhile the Pharisees, who may be supposed to 
have aided Herodias in exciting her husband against John, 
prepared to attack Jesus in his turn, for they had been alarm- 
ed by hearing that he made and baptized more disciples than 
John. Jesus heard of their plots and of John's imprisonment 
about the same time ; and he resolved to remove from Judaea 



15 John iii. 24-36. 

16 Matt, xiv. 3-5 ; Mark vi. 17-20; 
Luke iii. 19, 20. Concerning Herod 



Antipas and Herodias, see chap, v § 
3, p. 1C2. 



A.D. 27. His Retirement to Galilee. 225 

into Galilee. 17 This may seem it strange step, considering 
that it was Herod who had imprisoned John. But our Lord's 
real danger was from the Jews ; and in the Tetired district 
round the Lake of Galilee, he wound be safe from Herod till 
He gave him some personal offense. 

The route which Christ followed is particularly marked by 
John: "He must needs go through Samaria," 18 that is, the 
district, not the city. It is by no means to be assumed that, 
this was just the natural route. Even from Jerusalem, travel- 
ers often followed the route up the Jordan, to avoid contact 
with the hated Samaritans ; and the appearance of a Jewish 
traveler at Jacob's well was unusual enough to cause surprise. 
But from our Lord's starting-point, on the Jordan and appar- 
ently rather high up its course, the valley of the river was 
much the nearest road to the Lake of Galilee; and he went 
out of his way when he turned to the left through a pass 
leading into the valley of Shechem. Hence St. John's use of 
that " must" the force of which we had just now to notice. 
It marks the order in which our Saviour's public mission was 
fulfilled. Driven from Jerusalem and Judsea, he repaired to 
the more ancient sanctuary of Israel, where Abraham, Jacob, 
and Joshua had set up the worship of Jehovah. Sitting by 
the well which tradition cherished as the gift of Jacob, 1 Sb in 
the valley between mounts Gerizim and Ebal, he expounded 
to a degraded woman of the half-heathen people of Sychar, 19 
who yet boasted to be the true children of the patriarchs, his 
own great gift of living water in the heart, and the spiritual 
worship which should supersede that both of Jerusalem and 

17 John iv. 1-3 ; Matt. iv. 12. | np the mouth, so that nothing can be 

18 John iv. 4. I seen above but a shallow pit half 
18 b The site of this well is one of filled with stones and rubbish. The 

the few special localities of our Lord's ; well is deep — 75 ft. when last meas- 
life which is absolutely undisputed, j ured — and there was probably a con- 
It lies about 1^- mile E. of the city, siderable accumulation of rubbish at 
close to the lower road, and just be- ! the bottom. Sometimes it contains a 
yond the wretched hamlet of Balata. ' few feet of water, but at others it is 
Among the Mahometans and Samar- quite dry. It is entirely excavated 
itans it is known as Bir el-Yakub, ; in the solid rock, perfectly round, 9 
or 'Ain Yakub ; the Christians some- 1 ft. in diameter, with the sides hewn 
times call it Bir es-Samariyeh — " the smooth and regular. 
well of the Samaritan woman." | 19 A contemptuous variety of the 
Formerly there was a square hole name of Shechem. The phrase "a 
opening into a carefully-built vaulted j woman of Samaria," which our trans- 
chamber, about 10 feet square, in the ( lators have used to express " Samari- 
floor of which was the true mouth of ! tan " in the feminine, is. apt to mis< 
the well. Now a portion of the vault j lead the English reader, 
has fallen in and completely covered i 
K 2 



22(5 First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VII*. 

Gerizim ; and her eagerness to impart the news to her fellow- 
townsmen brought to him disciples, who at once received him 
with that spiritual faith in his true mission which the Jews 
had wanted : " We have heard him ourselves, and know that 
this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." 20 

§ 7. Having stayed two days at Sychar, Jesus proceeded 
into Galilee. " For Jesus himself testified," says St. John, 
" that a prophet hath no honor in his own country." 21 We 
can not stay to discuss whether this is an explanation of our 
Lord's reason for leaving Judaea, " his own country " by 
birth/ 2 or whether it is not rather a prophecy of the reception 
he was about to meet in Galilee, which is certainly the sense 
of " his own country " elsewhere, as it was the country of his 
parents and of his own early life — whether his own emphatic 
testimony, that a prophet hath no honor in his own country, 
was a reason for his seeking honor where he might have it, 
or rather a motive for going forward to meet the shame 
which he came to bear. Whichever be the true meaning, the 
saying must at least be rescued from that degraded sense in 
which it is so often quoted, as if it were the just complaint of 
disappointed pride. It was certainly not uttered in this spirit 
by Him who said, "I receive not honor from men." We 
think of worldly honor, where our Saviour spoke of that ac- 
ceptance of his mission, which alone is true honor to a prophet 
of God. On his first arrival in Galilee, this honor seemed to 
be paid to him ; for the report of his miracles at Jerusalem, 
brought by the Galileans who had gone up to the Passover, 
secured him a favorable reception ; but it was only in appear- 
ance. His marked rejection at his own city of Nazareth 23 
soon proved that, whether the first application of the words 
just quoted be to Jerusalem or to Galilee, they were true 
alike of both. They were, in fact, uttered by our Saviour as 
the enunciation of a great general principle, and one much 
higher than the worldly maxim, that familiarity breeds con- 
tempt. The saying was a sorrowful statement of the truth, 
that they to whom the Gospel is brought nearest are the least 
ready to receive it; that the prophet is rejected, even where 

20 John iv. 1-42. Bishop Horslcy's j John's only notice of Christ's birth- 
Sermons on this text are full of in- ' place, furnishes another instance of 
struction : though perhaps he presses the supplemental character of his 
too far his argument, that the Sa- Gospel. 

maritans had learned from the Pen- | 23 Luke iv. 1G-31. The question, 
tateuch alone to expect a spiritual j whether the rejection of Christ at 
and universal Saviour. i Nazareth belongs to this or a later 

21 John iv. 43-45. i time, is one of the chief difficulties of 

22 That this doubtful allusion is St. ' the Gospel Harmony. 



A.D. 27-8. Second Miracle in Galilee. 227 

he ought to be first accepted, " in his own country " where he 
is best known, as Jesus w T as already known in Galilee by his 
miracle in Cana, nay, as he elsewhere adds, " in his ovm 
house" 

This question of interpretation is closely connected with 
another, which involves one of the greatest difficulties of the 
Gospel Harmony : — Did our Saviour, upon this return from 
his first Passover, at once commence his public ministry in 
Galilee, or did he spend another period in comparative pri- 
vacy ? The former seems the natural inference from the first 
three Gospels ; though it is equally true that, taken alone, 
they would suggest the still earlier date, immediately upon 
Christ's baptism. On the other hand, St. John seems to im- 
ply that the healing of the nobleman's son w r as the only great 
incident of this second visit of Jesus to Galilee; 24 but the 
supplemental character of his Gospel makes it unsafe to ar- 
gue from his silence, nor are the words " after this," at the 
beginning of Chap. V., a mark of immediate sequence. If 
the feast of John v. 1 be a Passover, it is almost necessary 
to place our Lord's first circuit before it; because we can 
hardly suppose a whole year to have been occupied by the 
events of John iii. and iv., nor does it seem possible to admit 
the necessary inference, that two full years of our Lord's 
ministry passed before he chose his Apostles. If the feast of 
John v. 1 be the Feast of Tabernacles, we have half a year 
for those events, and a year and a half for our Lord's minis- 
try in Galilee, up to his last Passover. The question seems 
incapable of positive decision ; but the balance of probability 
appears to point to the order indicated above. 

§ 8. On entering Galilee from Samaria, Jesus went to 
Cana, led apparently by the same connection wmich had be- 
fore caused his presence at the marriage there. 25 His return 
came to the ears of a courtier of Herod Antipas, whose son 
was at the point of death with a fever. The manner of the 
courtier's coming to Christ illustrates the spirit in which " the 
Galileans received Him." There seems to have been an ex- 
pectation that he would be lavish of his miracles for the bene- 
fit of his own countrymen, with very little thought of their 
higher purpose. The courtier appears to have come, like 
Naaman to Elisha, thinking that his visit was an honor to 
the prophet, who w^ould doubtless go back with him at once. 
The plural form of our Lord's rebuke — " Except ye see signs 
and wonders, ye will not believe," — proves it to have been 

24 John iv. 54. l5 John iv. 4G-54. 



228 First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VIII. 

meant for the Galileans in general They had long known 
him ; his first miracle had been performed at this very town, 
and they had seen what he had done at Jerusalem ; and the 
evidence of his mission was complete. But they were heed- 
less of its real object, and seemed to think they had a right 
to any satisfaction of their curiosity. The courtier was too 
intent on his own distress to have patience for the lesson ; 
but though there was impatience, there was also earnest faith, 
in his rejoinder, — " Sir, come down ere my child die." This 
mixed state of mind our Lord treated with as much wisdom 
as compassion. Instead of going down with the courtier to 
Capernaum, he tells him to " go his way," but with the as- 
surance that " his child lived." That the courtier began to 
understand the lesson of submission as well as faith, appears 
from the leisurely mode of his return. It was about noon 
when the conversation took place; 26 and the moderate jour- 
ney from Cana to Capernaum could have been accomplished 
the same evening. But, in spite of the father's impatience, 
he stays to rest his servants and horses ; and when, on the 
following day, he is met with the joyful tidings, " Thy son 
liveth," his first question proves that he was prepared for the 
event itself, and only anxious to connect it with the Saviour's 
word ; " he inquired of them the hour when he began to 
amend." The answer sets the seal to the decisive evidence 
of the miracle, in which, as compared with the first miracle at 
Cana, we have the new feature, that it was performed at a 
distance from its object. At Cana, Christ speaks the word, 
and the father did not fail to mark the time, as it was just 
noon. At Capernaum, the effect follows at the same instant, 
the nature of the disease being such as to enable the by-stand- 
ers to mark the very hour at which " the fever left him." 27 The 
servants set out from Capernaum with the news, ignorant of 
what had passed at Cana, and find their message received as 
the confirmation of hope, rather than an unlooked-for deliv- 
erance from despair. Then did master and servant alike see 
the deeper grace which lay beneath the gift of healing, the 
new life to their own souls : " himself believed, and his whole 
house." There remains but one wonder unexplained : — that 
a miracle resting on such evidence, and conveying such les- 
sons, should not produce the like faith in all who read it. 

This brief sojourn at Cana, and this great miracle, which 
the order of St. John seems to require us to place immedi- 

20 John iv. 52, 53. I is well known to those who have felt 

27 This marked cessation of a fever it. 



A. D. 27-8 Beginning of the Word from Galilee. 229 

ately after the return of Jesus from Jerusalem to Galilee, may 
be regarded as a preface to the opening of his public ministry 
in the latter country, which we may place about the begin- 
ning of a.d. 28. 

§ 9. " The word which began from Galilee, after the bap- 
tism which John preached," is the description of our Sav- 
iour's ministry by St. Peter. 28 This view agrees so entirely 
with the order of the first three Evangelists, that, had we 
possessed their Gospels only, we should scarcely have sus- 
pected the interval which is filled up with such momentous 
events in the Gospel of St. John. The full view of the case, 
drawn from the comparison of all the four Gospels, seems to 
be this: — As the first experimental step in Christ's public 
ministry, he presented himself as the Son of God, the prom- 
ised Messiah, among those Jews who claimed to be the pure 
children of Abraham, at the centre of their religious system, 
the Temple in Jerusalem. Not till they had rejected this 
special offer of grace to them, and plotted against his life, did 
he open his wider mission of mercy to the mixed race of the 
Galileans ; 29 and their position in relation to the Jews of Ju- 
daea in some sense foreshadows the extension of the Gospel 
to the Gentiles. Those higher privileges, of which the Ju 
dsaan Jews boasted, proved the chief obstacle to their recep- 
tion of Christ as the Saviour of sinners ; and so he turned to 
" the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Thus, while his first 
open revelation as the promised Messiah was made in the 
Temple of Jerusalem at the Passover, the true beginning of 
his Gospel, in the stricter sense, as " the word which God sent 
unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ," 
was first opened by the Galileans. If his public ministry be- 
gan at Jerusalem, his open preaching began in Galilee. Per- 
haps this relation is implied in the peculiar phraseology of 
St. Luke, that " Jesus returned, by the power of the Spirit, 
into Galilee." 30 This course was in complete accordance with 
prophecy, which had marked out the very spot in Galilee, 
where Capernaum stood by the lake, on the borders of Zabu- 
lon and Naphthali, as the chief scene of the Messiah's minis- 
try. 31 Nor should we omit to observe the coincidence that, 
as the captivity of Israel had begun with the Galileans, so to 
them was first proclaimed the liberty of the Gospel. 



28 Acts x. 37. 

29 See Notes and Illustrations (C), 
Galilee. 

30 Lnke iv. 14: comp. Matt. iv. 12, 
Mark i. 14. 



31 Is. ix. 1, 2 ; Matt. iv. 13-16. For 
the rendering of this difficult passage, 
see Bp. Lowth, in he. 



230 First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. vill. 

From this point the first three Evangelists begin their con* 
tinuous narratives of our Saviour's life. What precedes this, 
in each of them, is introductory: — The birth and youth of 
John and Jesus, the ministry of John, and Christ's baptism 
and temptation; Of these matters it is not probable tha -, 3 
either of the three Evangelists had any direct personal knowl 
edge. St. Luke, who tells us that he followed those " who 
from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the 
word," is most full on those first incidents which he could 
only have learned from the members of the Holy Family. 
All three give a brief account of the ministry of John the 
Baptist, received, no doubt, from those of his disciples who 
followed Christ. Their narrative of the temptation must 
have been derived by Matthew directly, by Mark and Luke 
at second-hand, from Him who passed through the conflict- 
After this, each of the three Gospels makes a pause, such as 
would be properly marked by the beginning of a new chapter, 
or even by making all that precedes a separate introduction. 
Their omission of the events meanwhile recorded by St. 
John is not surprising. Matthew, himself a native of Caper- 
naum, naturally begins with our Lord's residence in that city, 
when, " leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Caperna- 
um." 32 Luke, who, as we have seen, obtained information 
from the Holy Family, makes Christ's rejection at Nazareth 
the first principal event. Mark, writing under the direction 
of Peter, begins with the call of that apostle and his fellow- 
fishermen on the shores of the Lake of Galilee. It is need- 
less to discuss the refined question, Why did not St. Mark 
record those events of which Peter was the witness as well 
as John at Bethabara (or Bethany), at Cana, at Jerusalem, at 
Sychar, and again at Cana? Perhaps the extent to which 
Mark should be viewed as Peter's organ has been exaggerated. 
At all events, it is enough that John was an especially fit wit- 
ness to that period, not only from his constant companion- 
ship, but from his deeper insight into his Master's teaching. 

In all that has now been said, the higher authority of the 
Evangelists, as inspired writers, is left untouched. The 
whole doctrine of inspiration itself rests on the previous es- 
tablishment of the character of the sacred writers as well-in- 
formed, competent, and honest witnesses. The same Lord, 
svho promised the Spirit to guide his disciples into all the 
truth, and to bring to their remembrance all his words, chose 
those disciples to be " eye-witnesses and attendants of the 

32 Mutt. iv. 13. 



A..D. 28. Jesus in the Synagogue of Nazareth. 231 

word." It was from those who had this character that St. 
Luke claims to have had " a perfect understanding of all 
things from the very first," and therefore to be qualified to 
write of them. And the very Evangelist who records the 
promise of the Holy Spirit rests his own credibility on his 
external means of information, as well as on the internal as- 
surance of the Spirit to his truth : — " He that saw it bare 
record, and his record is true : and he knoweth that he saith 
true, that ye might believe." 33 Inspiration gives an authority 
in addition to their credibility. 

§ 10. The epoch thus chosen by the first three Evangelists, 
as the commencement of our Lord's public ministry, is most 
emphatically marked by the words of Luke : " Jesus returned 
in the power of the Spirit into Galilee." 34 The time had 
come, as he himself soon proclaimed at Nazareth, when the 
Spirit moved him to make a full and plain declaration of his 
Messiahship and his Gospel. All three Evangelists begin 
this portion of their narrative with the great fact of his proc- 
lamation of " the Gospel of the kingdom." 35 His first words 
echo those of his forerunner : — " The time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand ; repent ye, and believe the Gos- 
pel." He does not yet announce the kingdom of heaven as 
come, but only its near approach, as the call to the prepara- 
tion of heart needful for entrance within its pale. This is 
not, at least in its primary sense, the language of expectation 
for that kingdom of glory, for which the Church still prays ; 
for Christ proclaimed the real advent of the kingdom of grace 
and life in the hearts of penitent believers : — " Blessed are the 
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven /" 36 — " The 
publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before 
you" (the Pharisees). But to all else, up to the very close of 
his ministry, Christ proclaimed the kingdom of heaven only as 
nigh. It only came to those who entered it with the prep- 
aration on which first John, and then Christ himself, insisted. 
But this was the great difference in their ministry. John 
never ceased to point to a far greater One who was coming 
after him : Christ declared that the fullness of time was come, 
and the prophecies were fulfilled in himself. The prepara- 
tion required by John was repentance and reformation. 
Christ goes deeper, and besides repentance he demands faith, 
— readiness to believe from the heart the truths he came to 
teach. This was his claim in the outset of his ministry, re- 

33 John xix. 35: comp. xxi. 24. ' 5 Matt. iv. 17; Mark i. 14, 15? 

34 Luke iv. 14. . [ Luke iv. 14, 15. 36 Matt. v. 3. 



232 First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VIIL 

serving for its course the full revelation of those truths and 
the spiritual exposition of that faith; the laws of the king- 
dom of heaven. Thus much, however, was clear from the 
first, that, in proclaiming the new order of things as a king- 
dom, Christ pointed to the fulfillment of the covenant with 
David, and claimed all the authority of his promised seed. 

The news of his preaching soon spread through all the dis- 
trict of northern Galilee. Unlike John, who had lifted up his 
voice in the wilderness, and waited for converts to come out to 
him, Jesus went round from village to village, appearing as a 
worshiper in the synagogues, and availing himself of the cus- 
tomary invitation to speak to the people ; and " he was glori- 
fied of all." 37 

We are not told what or how much he taught — probably 
the simple lesson, expounded from the prophets, that " the 
kingdom of heaven was at hand." How near it was, when 
he himself was present, was an announcement that he reserved 
for — or perhaps we should rather say was impelled by the 
Spirit to make to — the people of his own city. " He came to 
Nazareth, where he had been brought up." 38 And there, 
even as he made the first plain announcement of his Messiah- 
ship, he encountered the first open opposition, for, as he him- 
self said, "A prophet is not accepted in his own country." 
Here, as was the custom in all the Galilean synagogues, but 
doubtless with a more eager exj)ectation, he was invited to 
read the Scriptures and address the people. It was plainly 
not without some high purpose that he chose the passage of 
Isaiah : " The S2nrit of Jehovah is upon me, because he hath 
anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor ; he hath sent 
me to heal the broken-hearted, and to preach deliverance to the 
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind ; to set at liber- 
ty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of 
Jehovah " 39: — the Jubilee of the world. He closed the book, 
and returned it to the officer of the synagogue who kept the 
sacred rolls, and sat down. But all eyes remained fixed upon 
him in an expectation which he satisfied, rather than sur- 
prised, by announcing himself as the Christ, who was thus 
filled with the Spirit, to preach this Gospel : — " This day is 
fchis scripture fulfilled in your ears." 

At first, the hearers were divided between admiration of 
the Prophet and offense at his origin, as the son of their hum- 
ble fellow-townsman Joseph. 4 ' But when, foreseeing that 
they would raise the selfish cry for signs and wonders to 

s ~Lukeiv. 14, 15. r8 Luke iv. 1G-31. :9 Isaiah ljd '., 2. 40 Luke iv. 22, 



A.P. 28. The Sea of Galilee. 233 

glorify his own city, Jesus intimated that he was sent to the 
Gentiles — such as the Sidonian widow to whom Elijah minis- 
tered, and the Syrian leper whom Elisha healed, 41 the Proph- 
et's own countrymen being passed over in both cases — then 
their wonder turned to rage. They dragged him out of the 
city, to cast him from the hill upon which it was built ; but 
he passed unseen from the midst of them, and so escaped. 42 

§11. Jesus next appeared at Capernaum, on the Lake of 
Galilee. 43 His residence at this city, which had already wit- 
nessed one of his greatest miracles, and perhaps more, is re- 
ferred to by himself as having raised the place to heaven in 
privilege, though its unbelief cast it down to hell. 44 Mean- 
while the place became the centre from which the " great 
light," predicted by Isaiah, shone round upon " the people that 
walked in darkness" and "sat in the region and shadow of 
death." 45 The tribes of Zabulon and Xaphthali, after being 
seduced into idolatry through their neighborhood to the 
Phoenicians on the one side, were among the first who suc- 
cumbed to the attacks of the Assyrians on the other. Hav- 
ing been carried captive by Tigiath-pileser, 46 their land Avas 
repeopled in a great degree by a mixture of heathen settlers, 
and thus the northern part of Galilee acquired both the name 
and character of " Galilee of the Gentiles." 4T 

Our Saviour's chief resort was now the margin of that 
beautiful lake which is variously called the Sea of Galilee, of 
Tiberias, and of Gennesareth. "He walked by the Sea of 
Galilee," not like the pilgrim who now tracks his footsteps — 

"Where stately Jordan flows by many a palm, 
Or where Gennesaret's wave 
Delights the flowers to lave, 
That o'er her western slope breathe airs of balm. 

"All through the summer night, 
Those blossoms red and bright 48 
Spread their soft breasts, unheeding, to the breeze, 
"■ Like hermits watching still 

Around the sacred hill 
Where erst our Saviour watched upon his knees. 



41 Luke iv. 23-28. 

42 Luke iv. 28-31. 43 Luke iv. 31. 



47 See further in Notes and Illus- 
trations (C), Galilee. 
44 Matt. xi. 25. 48 Oleanders (not rhododendrons), 

Matt. iv. 13-16: comp. Is. ix. 1,2. with which the western bank of the 
See 0. T. History, chap. xxiv. § t lake is said to be clothed down to the 

| water's edge. 



23-i First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VII?, 

"The Paschal moon above 

Seems like a saint to rove, 
Left shining in the world with Christ alone ; 

Below, the lake's still face 

Sleeps sweetly in th' embrace 
Of mountains terrac'd high with mossy stone. 

"Here may we sit, and dream 

Over the heavenly theme, 
Till to our soul the former days return ; 

Till on the grassy bed, 

Where thousands once He fed, 
The world's incarnate Maker we discern." 49 

The region of beauty, thus mused over by the poet, was to 
Him the scene of constant labor for the souls that sat there in 
darkness. Days begun in preaching were filled up with the 
relief of hundreds Avho were sick, maimed, or tormented with 
devils ; and the ensuing nights Avere spent in lonely agonies 
of prayer, or in crossing over the stormy lake. Here Christ 
is first presented to our view as preaching the Word of God 
to such multitudes, that he was fain to seek a station whence 
to address them on the lake itself. Two fishing-boats were 
drawn up on the beach, while their owners were employed in 
washing their nets. Jesus entered one of them, which was 
Simon's, as St. Luke simply tells us, without any allusion to 
his previous call. 50 After teaching the people from a short 
distance off the coast, Christ bade Simon and his brother An- 
drew to put out into deep water, and to let down their nets, 
Now appears the first mark of recognition : — " Master" says 
Simon, " Ave haA^e toiled all the night, and haA T e taken nothing : 
nevertheless, at thy icord, I will let down the net." 51 The 
cast was folloAved by such a haul of fish, that the net broke ; 
they called for help to their partners, the OAvners of the other 
ship, who were no other than John the son of Zebedee, and 
his brother James ; and the fish so loaded both the ships, 
that they began to sink. Overcome by these AA T onders, Peter 
fell down upon his knees, saying, " Depart from me, for I am 
a sinful man, O Lord," thus, by direct prayer to Christ, with 

49 Keble, Christian Year: "Third i markable feature is its deep depres- 
Sunday in Advent." — The Sea of | sion, its surface being no less than 
Galilee is of an oval shape, about 13 700 feet below the level of the ocean, 
geographical miles long, and 6 broad. Like almost all lakes of volcanic ori- 
The river Jordan enters it at its gin, it occupies the bottom of a great 
northern end, and passes out at its j basin, the sides of which shelve down 
southern end. In fact the bed of the witli a uniform slope from the sur- 
lake is just a lower section of the rounding plateaus, 
great Jordan valley. Irs most re- I 50 Luke v. 1-3. 51 Luk^ v 5. 



A.D. 28. The Sea of Galilee. 235 

confession of sin, recognizing for the first time his true di- 
vinity. 53 

What John records was not yet a call to constant attend- 
ance on the Master and the ministry of the Word, though 
enough had passed to designate these first disciples for their 
future ministry, especially when they baptized Christ's con- 
verts, and when he spoke to them of their part in the coming 
spiritual harvest. Their return to their homes and their call- 
ings was an act of duty, and it gave them besides the oppor- 
tunity of preparing for their final call in that gradual manner 
which usually marks God's own processes. We see them 
diligently enrployed in hard and often fruitless work, and the 
two of them, who are able to employ hired servants, sharing 
their father's labors with filial piety. That, amid their world- 
ly business, they may have somewhat forgotten their higher 
calling, is in accordance with human nature, and seems almost 
implied in their occupation about their nets while Jesus was 
preaching on the shore. With his own exquisite gentleness 
he recalls them to himself, first by using Peter's boat to ad- 
dress the people from, and then by repaying its use with a 
generosity which was nevertheless eclipsed by the miracle it 
involved. So Peter falls down, not to thank the giver for 
the fish, but to glorify the Lord by a confession that proved 
himself to be now prepared for the work to which he is forth- 
with called : — " Fear not ; from henceforth thou shalt catch 
men." 53 The interpretation of this figure was made by Christ 
himself, when he compared the kingdom of heaven to a net 
cast into the sea ; and the lesson was repeated in his last in- 
terview with his disciples on the Lake of Galilee, when the 
fact that, with another miraculous draught of fishes, " the net 
did not break" intimated that the time was at length come to 
reward the spiritual labors of these " fishers of men." 54 

Meanwhile they left all, fish, nets, and ship, to become the 
constant followers of Christ ; and the same course was taken 
by their partners, James and John, who had returned to the 
shore, and were busy with their father Zebedee, mending 
their broken nets, when Jesus called them in the words he 
had used to Peter and Andrew. It is a fine touch in St. 
Mark's narrative, that their father was not left uncared for : 
^They left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired 
sarvants." 55 

Throughout this whole narrative we have assumed that the 

53 Luke v. 8. j 55 Luke v. 10-11 ; Matt. iv. 18-22; 

53 Lit., take them alive, icy £wypwv. \ Mark i. 16-20. 
54 John xxi. 1-1 1. 



236 First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VIII. 

fuller account of Luke relates to the same events as the brief- 
er story of Matthew and Mark. Those who take a different 
view are not agreed as to which call should be the earlier ; 
and, as to difficulties arising from minor discrepancies, they 
may be once for all disposed of by the following arguments, 
which are conclusive in this and many similar cases : — " That 
there are some difficulties, yet such as hardly deserve that 
name, in the bringing to a perfect agreement of the two ac- 
counts, every one will readily admit ; but, wherever these oc- 
cur, the taking refuge at once in the supposition that an event 
happened, with immaterial variations, twice or even three 
times over, seems a very questionable untying of the knot. . . . 
Very often a far more real difficulty is thus created. . . . Any 
one who considers the various aspects, yet all true, in which 
the same event will present itself from different points of view 
to different witnesses, — who keeps in mind how very few 
points in any complex fact or event any narration whatever 
can seize, — least of all a written one, which in its very nature 
is limited, — will little wonder when two or three relators have 
in part seized diversely the culminating points of a narrative, 
— have brought out different moments of an event. He will 
rather be grateful to that providence of God, which thus often 
sets us not merely in the place of one by-stander, but of many ; 
allows us to see the acts of Christ, every side of which is sig- 
nificant, from various points of view, to hear, of his discourses, 
not merely so much as one disciple took in and carried away, 
but also that which sank especially deep into the heart and 
memory of another." 66 

§ 12. The following Sabbath was a memorable day at Ca- 
pernaum." In the midst of the synagogue, where Jesus ap- 
peared according to his custom, exciting new astonishment by 
the power of his teaching, there was one of those unhappy 
wretches called Demoniacs. The state of such persons has 
been a most fruitful topic of controversy; but one thing is 
quite clear, that its reality can not be denied or explained 
away, without impugning the whole truth of the Gospels. For 
they most clearly assume the personal presence of evil spirits 
in the possessed man, overpowering his will and governing his 
actions. The unclean spirits are said to " enter in " and " de- 
part out of" the patients. They speak and are spoken to, 
both while within their victims and after they have come out. 
They hold converse with Christ in a manner quite unsuitable 
to the sufferers, but just on the terms we should expect from 

6t Trench, On the Miracles, iii. p. 125. 57 Mark i. 21-28 ; Luke iv. 31-37. 



A.D. 28. 



The Demoniac at Capenicmm. 



237 



fallen spirits, still in rebellion against his authority, which yet 
they are compelled to own. He fixes their very place of abode, 
after they have left the bodies of their victims. In the face 
of all these statements^ to explain away possession as epilepsy, 
or lunacy, is to accuse our Saviour and the Evangelists of a 
delusion or imposture (and it could scarcely have been the 
former) as gross as that of the modern " spiritualists." In 
some cases, bodily or mental disease may have co-existed with 
the possession, which is therefore classed with sicknesses, 
while at the same time distinguished from lunacy, 58 a distinc- 
tion which was clearly drawn by the Jews themselves. 53 Nor 
can it be said that Jesus simply used the name that had first 
been established by an erroneous belief, just as we keep the 
word lunacy. What should we think of a physician, who so 
used that word as to imply his belief in the thing? who 
should describe the cure of his patients as the moon ceasing 
to afflict them ? nay, who should solemnly address the moon, 
and, with the authority of its Creator, bid it leave off hurting 
the patient ? We do not affect to explain the state itself ; nor 
need sceptical philosojmers complain of this, till they have ex- 
plained mental derangement. The limits and mutual reactions 
of the spiritual, mental, and corporeal faculties in man have as 
yet baffled all the researches of science. It is enough that we 
can see in this condition a consequence of the doctrine of a 
usurped kingdom of evil in the world, under a personal head 
(SiafioXoe) with many followers and ministers (dat/j,oyeg, Saifiovia) 
who exercise power over fallen man. 00 

" Jesus went about healing all that were oppressed of the 
devil." In his own temptation he had sternly rebuked Satan's 
attempt to make him a subject, and now he proved his right 
to the kingdom by his unbounded power over evil spirits, who 
confess their own defeat. Nay, even before he exerts his 
power, they anticipate their doom. They know that that 
doom is certain, that " their time is short," and that he is both 
the divine "Lord of Angels" (the Archangel), alike of the 
holy and the fallen, and " the seed of the woman " who was to 
" bruise the serpent's head." So, while he taught in the syn- 
agogue at Capernaum, the devil cried out, in surprise and ter- 
ror, " Ha ! 01 What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of 
"Nazareth ? Art thou come to destroy us ? " — as on other oc« 



68 Marki. 34; Matt. iv. 24. 

69 Matt. ix. 32, and xii. 22, com- 
pared with Mark vii. 32. 



60 Acts v. 3 ; John xiii. 2 : comp. 1 
John iii. 8, John viii. 44. . 

61 "Ea, which our version renders 
as an imperative "Let us alone!" 



238 



First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VIII. 



casions, " Art thou come to torment us before the time f " 62 
But he adds, " I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of 
God ;" and this is one of the most remarkable points in our 
Lord's dealings with the evil spirits, the testimony they bear 
to him. Hell is before Earth in acknowledging her Lord. 
Fear has a quicker perception than Love, or even than the 
sense of need. " The devils also believe and tremble." This 
confession has been regarded by some as an involuntary ut- 
terance of truth or as an act of abject fawning, and by others 
as an unwilling testimony extorted by the power of Christ. 
But the fact that he rejects it concurs with other considera- 
tions in suggesting that its real motive was malicious. His 
acknowledgment by the devils seems to be closely connected 
with the accusation of the Jews : — " He casteth out devils by 
Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." c3 But while their con- 
fession proved that he was their master, he will not accept 
their testimony to his spiritual character and mission. He, 
who had other and greater witness even than John the Bap- 
tist, will not use their utterances to reveal, what is revealed 
by his own word. So on this, and all similar occasions, he 
silences, we may say muzzles, the evil spirit, who takes a part- 
ing revenge by doing all the harm he could to the man's body, 
as he had tried to do to our Saviour's reputation. But the 
same power that cast him out, at once healed the body he had 
mangled. 64 This example of our Saviour's power over the 
spiritual world was all the more striking by its contrast to 
those attempts at exorcism by which the Jews did little more 
than admit their belief in the reality of possession, and prove 
the fallacy of their charge against Christ, that his real exor- 
cisms proved him to be in league with evil spirits. The fame 
of his decisive victory over Satan spread through all the 
neighboring parts of Galilee. 65 

From the synagogue, Christ went to the house of Peter, 
and healed his wife's mother, who was sick of a fever. The 
fact of Peter's marriage, which thus comes out incidentally, is 
alluded to by St. Paul as an argument for his own liberty to 
marry if he had only thought it expedient. This is one of the 
many cases, in which the facts recorded in Scripture seem 
specially designed to anticipate the errors of later ages. This 



62 Matt. viii. 29. 

63 Markiii. 11, 22: comp. Actsxvi. 
16-18. 

04 This is the plain and easy rec- 
onciliation of Mark's "when the 
unclean spirit had torn him," with 



Luke's "he hurt him not." As to 
the "loud crv," comp. Acts viii. 7. 

65 Mark i. 21-28; Luke iv. 31, 37. 
The silence of Matthew seems to in- 
dicate that the worldly-minded publi- 
can was not present in the synagogue 



A.D. 28. 



The Evening of the Sabbath. 



233 



great Sabbath of " doing good " was closed by an evening no 
less memorable. As soon as the sun had set, the people, who 
had scrupled to carry the sick to Christ before the Sabbath 
ended, brought all in the town who were suffering from every 
form of disease, and among. them many demoniacs ; and Jesus 
healed them all, again imposing silence on the evil spirits, 
when they proclaimed him as the Christ. Thus did ho show 
himself in the character foretold by Isaiah : — " Himself took 
our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." C6 The memorable 
Sabbath, the events of which are thus circumstantially record- 
ed, may give us an example of our Lord's labors in his minis- 
try, and show us how he fulfilled his own great saying con- 
cerning doing good on the Sabbath days: — "My Father 
worketh hitherto, and 1 work". 

§ 13. The next morning shows us another aspect of our 
Saviour's character. Instead of indolent repose after such a 
day of labor, he rose up long before the dawn, and went into 
a solitary place to pray. Besides the impressive example of 
early rising and prayer™ we see in this retirement, as in 
many other cases, the desire to withdraw himself out of the 
danger of a precipitate demonstration of premature zeal. Ac- 
cordingly, when his disciples found him, he at once proposed 
to leave Capernaum for a time, and preach the Gospel in the 
surrounding cities. So he went throughout all Galilee, teach- 
ing in the synagogues and healing the sick and possessed. But 
it was not Galilee alone that reaped the benefit. The fame of 
his teaching and his miracles drew multitudes from the neigh- 
boring parts of Syria, from the whole of Decapolis, and the re- 
gion beyond the Jordan and the lake, and even from Jerusalem 
and Judaea. 68 

This was Chrisfs First Circuit through Galilee. Its course 
is conjectured by Gresswell to have been, upon the whole, as 
follows : — " First, along the western side of the Jordan, north- 
ward, which would disseminate the fame of Jesus in Decapo- 
lis ; secondly, along the confines of the tetrarchy of Philip, 
westward, which would make him known throughout Syria; 
thirdly, by the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, southward ; and, lastly, 
along the verge of Samaria, and the western region of the 
Lake of Galilee — the nearest points to Judaea proper and to 
Peraea — until it returned to Capernaum." C9 Such a circuit 



66 Matt. viii. 4-17 ; Mark i. 29-34 ; 
Luke iv. 38-41 ; Is. liii. 4. 

67 See Henry Vaughan's beautiful 
lines with this title, in several collec- 
tions of English poetry. 



68 Matt. Iv. 23-25 ; Mark i. 35-39 ; 
Luke iv. 42-44. 

69 Gresswell, Dissertations, vol. ii. 
p. 293. 



240 



First Year of Christ's Ministry. 



Chap. VIII. 



must have occupied some months ; but perhaps it is needlessly 
enlarged, in order to bring Jesus near the parts from which 
his followers came. It would rather seem, notwithstanding 
the indefinite phrase, " all Galilee," that this first circuit had a 
narrower scope. 70 After the man cured of leprosy had spread 
his fame abroad, 71 he avoided such great publicity by retiring 
into the desert ; and it was there that " they came to him from 
every quarter." Nor do the meagre details of this circuit 
seem consistent with a great extent or a long duration. Its 
only recorded incident is the miracle just referred to, by which 
Christ showed his power over a disease incurable in its viru- 
lence, and excluding the sufferer from the society of his fel- 
Ioavs as well as the ordinances of religion; one which, for all 
these reasons, has ever been considered a type of inveterate 
sin. In healing the leper by a touch, our Saviour not only 
showed his power but claimed a right that belonged only to 




Map of Galilee. 



See Mark I 



See below. 



A.D. 28. Return of Jesus to Capernaum. 241 

the priest, and asserted his own exemption from ceremonial 
defilement. 72 In saying w I will, be thou clean," he assumed a 
still higher prerogative, and pointed to a more thorough- puri- 
fication of the whole nature ; while, in sending the man to the 
priest, and bidding him offer the sacrifice appointed by Moses, 
he at once showed his own reverence for the law, and made 
his very enemies witnesses to the cure. The scene of this 
miracle was " a certain city," the name of which is not men- 
tioned, but which seems to have been Christ's abode for some 
time. But, in consequence of the multitudes who were at- 
tracted by the fame of the miracle, which the healed leper 
"blazed abroad" contrary to our Lord's injunction, he with- 
drew into the wilderness, and perhaps we may see in this cir- 
cumstance a premature termination of the circuit. St. Mark 
alone gives any hint of its duration by the indefinite phrase, 
that Christ returned to Capernaum " after [some] days." 

§ 14. The return of Jesus to Capernaum was followed by 
one of the most important incidents of his ministry. We 
have seen that followers flocked to him even from Jerusalem 
and JudaBa. Among these, as well as from the cities of Gali- 
lee, there were many Pharisees and teachers of the law, who 
came to watch him. In their presence, Jesus performed his 
great miracle of curing the bedridden paralytic, but not till 
he had first said to him, "Thy sins be forgiven thee !" The 
Jews saw the full extent of the prerogative thus claimed. 
Malignant as was their spirit, in charging him with blas- 
phemy, their reasoning was perfectly right : — " Who can for- 
give sins, but God alone f " And even before replying, 
Christ proved his divine knowledge by discerning in their 
hearts the objection which horror suspended on their tongues. 
Then he makes good his claim by words as well as deeds. 
The force of his argument is often lost by overlooking the 
proper emphasis, " Which is easier, to say, Thy sins be for- 
given thee, or to say, Rise up and walk ?" The mere word 
proves nothing in either case ; but when the act followed 
upon the latter command, it proved the power that attended 
the former. The helpless patient, rising up at the word of 



72 Matt. viii. 2-4; Mark i. 40-45 ; j those events which could not possibly 
Luke v. 12-16 : comp. Lev. xiii., xiv., j be put out of their proper order. 
Num. v. 2, 3. With regard to the j After it he relates, without regard 
order of St. Matthew, it is to be ob- j to chronological sequence, the chief 
served that he evidently places the I events of our Lord's earlier minis* 
Sermon on the Mount as early as pos- j try in Galilee (c. viii., ix.), which 
sible, as the great epitome of our j Mark and Luke refer to their proper 
Lord's teaching, prefixing to it onlv : places. 

L 



242 . First Year of Christ's Ministry. ^Chap. VIIL 

Christ, and carrying his bed to his own house, was a living 
proof that He who had dared also to utter to him the words 
of absolution had really " power upon earth to forgive sins." 
The force of the argument was at once felt by the people, 
who saw brought to their own doors a power which was the 
prerogative of the God of heaven ; and " they glorified him, 
who had given such a power to man." The Pharisees and 
Doctors would carry back to Jerusalem the news that Jesus 
of Nazareth had now openly proclaimed his kingdom over 
the most sacred domain of man's spiritual life, as a sinner 
seeking forgiveness from his offended God. 73 

§ 15. The call of Levi or Matthew, also at Capernaum, 
from the very booth where as a publican {portitor) he was 
collecting taxes, is placed by Mark and Luke directly after the 
healing of the paralytic ; and there seems no sufficient reason 
for separating from it the feast given by Matthew, at which 
the presence of many publicans and sinners gave our Lord 
occasion to teach the offended Pharisees, that he had not 
come to call the righteous — those who fancied themselves 
such — but sinners, to repentance. 74 At the same banquet Je- 
sus answered the charge made against his disciples for not 
fasting, and taught, by the parable of the new wine in old 



73 Matt. ix. 2-8; Mark ii. 1-12; [case let down the bed throuyh the 
Luke v. 17-26. Various explanations ■ verandah roof, or in the latter, down 
have been given of the means to by way of the roof, Sia, ru>v Kipd^ojv, 
which the earnest faith of the bearers and deposited it before the Saviour, 
of the paralytic prompted them, in j (2) Another explanation presents it- 
order to gain access to Christ, when self in considering the room where 
they found it impossible to make ! the company were assembled as the 
their way through the crowd that virip^ov, and the roof opened for the 
blocked up the entrance to the inner j bed to be the true roof of the house 
court of the house. Around part, if (Trench, Miracles, 199). (3) And 
not the whole of the court of an East- j one still more simple is found in re- 
ern house, is a verandah, often 9 or | garding the house as one of the rude 
10 feet deep, over which, when there dwellings still to be seen near the Sea 
is more than one floor, runs a second j of Galilee, a mere room "10 or 12 
gallery of like depth, with a balus- j feet high, and as many or more 
trade. Bearing in mind that the re- . square," with no opening except the 
ception-room is raised above the level j door. The roof, used as a sleeping- 
of the court, we may suppose either place, is reached by a ladder from the 
(1) that our Lord was standing under outside ; and the bearers of theparalyt- 
the verandah, and the people in front j ic, unable to approach the door, would 
in the court. The bearers of the sick | thus have ascended the roof, and 
man ascended the stairs to the roof j having uncovered it (tZopvZavrtg), 

let him down into the room where our 

Lord was. 

74 Matt. ix. 9-U; Mark ii. 15-17; 



of the house, and taking oif a portion 
of the boarded covering of the veran- 
dah, or removing the awning over the 
irupluvinm, to ydaov, in the former | Luke v. 27-32. 



A.D. 28. 



Call of Matthew. 



243 



bottles, and the new cloth sewn into an old garment, the im- 
possibility of confining the spiritual power of his kingdom 
within the dead letter of forms and traditions. 75 If, follow- 
ing the order of Matthew, we place after this the cure of the 
woman with an issue of blood, the restoration to life of the 
daughter of Jairus, the giving of sight to two blind men, and 
the casting a devil out of a dumb man, 76 we have, in this first 
stage of our Lord's Galilean ministry, examples of nearly all 
his chief miracles. In each species of miracle we may trace 
some particular infirmity, the fruit and type of a marked sin, 
not necessarily in the individual sufferer, but in human na- 
ture. Disease, in general, is the result of sin, and the type 
of moral disorder ; the demoniac, of passion ; the leper, of 
pollution ; the paralytic, of helpless prostration ; the loss of 
sight, sad. speech, and hearing, are emblems of the loss of 
spiritual sense by the willful shutting out of spiritual objects ; 
and the whole train of evils is crowned by death, the wages 
of sin. JSTor, in considering the various forms of our Lord's 
miracles, should we fail to notice the varied exhibitions of 
faith in those who came to him for relief ; for it was in ex- 
citing and rewarding such faith that the moral power of his 
miracles was chiefly shown. 

Thus, in the course of a year, had Jesus, after giving the 
Jews assembled at the Passover the first great opportunity 
which they lost, gathered in the first-fruits of spiritual harvest 
from the rejected soil of Samaria, and revealed the light of 
the Gospel amid the darkness of Galilee of the Gentiles, when 
according to the most probable interpretation of John v. 1, 
the return of the Passover called him up for the second time 
to Jerusalem. 

§ 16. " After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus 
went up to Jerusalem." 77 The chronological difficulty in- 
volved in this passage is discussed elsewhere; 78 and though 
the question seems incapable of absolute settlement, we may 
adopt the probability, that the "Feast" was the Passover 
(a.d. 28), as furnishing a definite, though not quite certain, 
order for the narrative. But the difficulty does not at all af- 
fect the importance of the ensuing transactions at Jerusalem, 
as giving occasion for the first of our Saviour's great dis- 
courses, in controversy with the unbelieving Jews. In such 
discourses we first see the great principle,' afterward so con- 



76 Matt. ix. 15-17; Mark ii. 18-22 
Luke v. 33-39, 



76 Matt. ix. 18-34; Mark v. 22-43, 
Luke viii. 41-56. 77 John v. 1 . 

78 See Notes and Illustrations (B). 



244 First Year of Christ's Ministry. Chap. VIIL 

spicuous in the history of the Church, that controversy is 
called forth by opposition and heresy, and then by controver- 
sy doctrine is established. And the office of recording this 
aspect of our Lord's ministry fell to John, not only as his 
most constant companion and the most intimate sharer of his 
thoughts, but as the apostle who survived till the heresies, 
which are more than once glanced at in the New Testament, 
had acquired such force as to be thus rebuked. The occasion 
was the miracle which Christ wrought on the palsied cripple 
at the pool which was fitly called Bethesda (the house of 
mercy), which was near the sheep-gate on the north-east side 
of the Temple. 79 It is said that the waters of this tank were 
connected with those of the pool of Siloam by subterraneous 
channels, through which there were sudden flushes that made 
the water bubble up in commotion. 80 At such seasons the 
water was supposed to have healing virtues ; confined, how- 
ever, to the first who stepped down into the tank, round 
which porticoes were built, to shelter the multitudes of sick 
and cripples, who came to take their chance. The doubts 
that have been cast upon the prodigy do not in the least de- 
tract from the use made of it by Christ. 81 On the contrary, 
the supposition of its being a delusion sets the truth of his 
miracle in a more striking light, as being the reality of that 
power which was there vainly sought. In any case, the mir- 
acle itself displayed the power, which Jesus claimed in the 
subsequent discourse, of exercising authority both over the 
laws of nature and the positive institutions of religion. The 
case chosen by our Lord was among the most hopeless of all 
that lay in the House of Mercy. The cripple had been par- 
alyzed for thirty-eight years, the very period that his fore- 
fathers had wandered in the wilderness ; and the burden of 
his infirmities was aggravated by the consciousness that they 
were the natural reward of his sins. 62 Thus he was a fit type 
of the people, in whom Jesus fulfilled the words of Isaiah, 
" Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Je- 
sus healed him, not by helping him to the waters, nor by any 
other visible agency, but by the very command to use the 
powers that had been so long suspended : " Rise, take up thy 

70 The large reservoir called the 80 Such a movement of water may 
Birlcet Israil, within the walls of the 
city, close by the St. Stephen's gate, 
and under the north-east wall of the 
Haram area, is generally considered 
to be the modern representative of 
Bethesda. 



be seen in a canal lock. 

81 Yerse 4, which seems to assert 
the reality of the miracle, is now re- 
garded as spurious, 

82 See v. 14. 



A.D. 28. His Doctrine of the Sabbath. 245 

bed, and walk !" Some commentators see in this act a sort 
of humiliation for the sin which had prostrated the sufferer. 
At all events, it involved other important consequences; for 
the offense which was loudly expressed by the Jews gave oc< 
casion to the first of those great doctrinal discourses of our 
Lord, which form so marked a feature of the Gospel of St. 
John. 

" On the same day was the Sabbath ;" and the Jews at 
once accused the man of Sabbath-breaking. They had, in- 
deed, the letter of the law on their side ; for carrying a bur- 
den was a " servile work," and this very act had been espe- 
cially denounced by the prophets. 83 But yet the man's sim- 
ple answer involved a decisive argument : — " He that made 
me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed and 
walk." It is the same argument afterward urged on just 
such another occasion : <c How can a man that is a sinner do 
such miracles ?" 84 

Our Lord himself enforced the argument, in defending 
himself against the Jews, who would have put him to death 
as a Sabbath-breaker. Virtually denying their jurisdiction, 
he asserted his own supremacy over the Sabbath, and by im- 
plication over every positive law, by the proof just given of 
his authority over the laws of nature, and on no less a ground 
than his own supreme divinity, as equal with the Father : — 
" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." These words 
involve the whole spirit of Christ's teaching in regard to the 
Sabbath. When God finished his work of creation, his Sab- 
batic rest was not inaction. He works continually, in his 
providence and his grace, in the work of sustaining his creat- 
ures, and especially in restoring them from their fall, and 
creating them anew to spiritual life. Thus has God " done 
good" hitherto, throughout the Sabbatic cycle of the ages. 
In this work, as in the material creation, the Word of God is 
the partaker and the true agent. So when he was made flesh, 
he made the same use of his earthly Sabbaths, and employed 
them in alleviating the burdens of the nature he had as- 
sumed. Thus " the Son of Man" was constituted " Lord of 
the Sabbath." In that character he proclaimed the great 
principles, — " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
for the Sabbath;" — "I will have mercy rather than sacri- 
fice ;" — and he added the practical law, which once received 
in its spirit would leave little room for casuistry, " Wherefore 
i't is laicful " — not simply allowable, as an exception, but right t 

83 Jet. xvii, 21-24 ; Neh. xv. 32-33. ei John ix. 16, 17, 24, 25 f 29. 30. 



246 . First Year of Chrises Ministry. Chap. Vill 

as the very essence of the institution — "It is lawful to do 
good on the Sabbath days." Not once only, but again and 
again, he illustrated these principles by such cases as that of 
the beast of burden fallen into a pit; he acted upon them, 
both in his ordinary work as a teacher, the highest form of 
"doing good," and by working miracles especially on this 
day, and maintained them in repeated arguments against the 
Jews. 

The other assertion involved in our Saviour's words was as 
clear to the understanding of the Jews as it was hateful to 
their prejudices. "Therefore the Jews sought the more to 
kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said 
also that God was his Father, making himself equal with 
God." 85 Instead of disowning the inference, our Saviour 
joins issue upon its truth. Pointing to his works as a proof 
of the perfect unity of power between his Father and himself, 
he claims the highest attribute of God, the power to confer 
spiritual life, and he declares, as a practical appeal to his op- 
ponents, that now was the season for its exercise. Their in- 
dignation at this new blasphemy is met, as on other occasions, 
by the remonstrance, " Marvel not at this," as the preface to 
new wonders, for this power to give spiritual life, arising 
from the divine life which the Son had in himself, would soon 
be proved by his power to awake the dead, and to call them 
before his own judgment-seat. For to him alone was com- 
mitted the divine attribute of judgment, because with him 
alone were the eternal principles of justice. 

The latter part of the discourse relates to the evidence of 
these claims. The recent testimony of John, added to the 
teaching of Moses and all the Scriptures, left the Jews with- 
out excuse for their unbelief, which Jesus traces back to the 
depravity of their will. But he appeals to higher testimony 
still, his own witness of himself, confirmed by the witness of 
the works which the Father had given him to do. But, in 
presenting these great truths and this convincing evidence, 
Jesus addresses the rulers of the Jews, not as disciples to be 
instructed and convinced, but as enemies to be put to shame 
by the truth they hated ; and to all the other proofs of his 
omniscience, he adds his knowledge of their ingrained aver* 
sion to God's truth. 

This discourse may serve as an example of those which oc- 

85 John v. 18. The inference is , that God was his Father, in such a 
not drawn merely from Christ's call- j manner and connection as to imply 
ing God his Father, hut from the j his equality with God. 
whole spirit of his claim; He said I 



A.D. 28. His Doctrine of the Sabbath. 247 

cupy so large a proportion of the Gospel of St. John, espe- 
cially the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th chapters. The pre- 
cise points in controversy, and the illustrations employed by 
Christ, vary with the several occasions ; but in all he appears 
claiming a dignity and authority no less than divine : in all 
he convicts the Jews, and especially their rulers, from their 
own most cherished principles, of obstinate unbelief in reject- 
ing his divine authority. Meanwhile, he had no sooner borne 
the first of these great testimonies against the Jewish rulers, 
than he withdrew himself from their plots against his life, 88 
and returned from this Passover, where he had once more 
experienced and rebuked the unbelief of the Jews, to the 
scene of his more hopeful labors in Galilee. 



86 John v. 16. 



■+ 



248 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. VIII 



NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



{A.j SCENE OF OUR LORD'S 
MINISTRY. 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke re- 
cord only our Lord's doings in Gal- 
ilee ; if we put aside a few days be- 
fore the Passion, we find that they 
never mention his visiting Jerusalem. 
John, on the other hand, while he 
records some acts in Galilee, devotes 
the chief part of his Gospel to the 
transactions in Judaea. But when 
the supplemental character of John's 
Gospel is borne in mind, there is little 
difficulty in explaining this. The 
three Evangelists do not profess to 
give a chronology of the ministry, 
but rather a picture of it : notes of 
time are not frequent in their narra- 
tive. And as they chiefly confined 
themselves to Galilee, where the Re- 
deemer's chief acts were done, they 
might naturally omit to mention the 
feasts, which, being passed by our Lord 
at Jerusalem, added nothing to the 
materials for his Galilean ministry. 
John, on the other hand, writing later, 
and giving an account of the Re- 
deemer's life which is still less com- 
plete as a history (for more than one- 
half of the fourth Gospel is occupied 
with the last three months of the 
ministry, and seven chapters out of 
twenty-one are filled with the ac- 
count of the few days of the Passion), 
vindicates his historical claim by sup- 
plying several precise notes of time. 
In the occurrences after the baptism 



of Jesus, days and even hours are 
specified (John i. 29, 35, 39, 43, ii. 1) ; 
the first miracle is mentioned, and 
the time at which it was wrought 
(John ii. 1-11). He mentions not 
only the Passover (John ii. 13, 23; 
vi. 4 ; xiii. 1, and perhaps v. 1), but 
j also the Feast of Tabernacles (John 
vii. 2) and of Dedication (John x. 
22) : and thus it is ordered that the 
Evangelist who goes over the least 
part of the ground of our Lord's min- 
istry is yet the same who fixes for us 
its duration, and enables us to arrange 
the facts of the rest more exactly in 
their historical places. It is true that 
the three Gospels record chiefly the 
occurrences in Galilee ; but there is 
evidence in them that miracles were 
wrought in Judaea. Frequent teach- 
ing in Jerusalem is implied in the 
Lord's lamentation over the lost city 
j (Matt, xxiii. 37). The appearance 
in Galilee of Scribes and Pharisees 
I and others from Jerusalem (Matt, iv. 
25, xv. 1) would be best explained 
| on the supposition that their enmity 
| had been excited against him during 
! visits to Jerusalem. The intimacj 
| with the family of Lazarus (Luke x. 
I 38), and the attachment of Joseph of 
Arimathea to the Lord (Matt, xxvii. 
57), would imply, most probably, fre- 
quent visits to Jerusalem. But why 
was Galilee chosen as the principal 
scene of the ministry ? The question 
is not easy to answer. The Prophet 
would resort to the Temple of God ; 



Chap. VIII. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



249 



the King of the Jews would go to his | 
own royal city ; the Teacher of the 
chosen people would preach in the 
midst of them. But their hostility I 
prevented it. The Saviour, who, ac- j 
cepting all the infirmities of " the 
form of a servant," which he hadtak- j 
en, fled in his childhood to Egypt, 
betakes himself to Galilee to avoid ; 
Jewish hatred and machinations, and j 
lays the foundations of his Church 
amid a people of impure and despised 
race. (See below, NoteC) To Jeru- 
salem he comes occasionall}', to teach, 
and suffer persecution^ and finally to 
die : " for it can not be that a prophet 
perish out of Jerusalem " (Luke xiii. 
33). It was upon the first outbreak 
of persecution against him that he 
left Judaea: "When Jesus had heard 
that John was £ast into prison, he de- 
parted into Galilee " (Matt. iv. 12). 
And that this persecution aimed at 
him also we gather from St. John : 
"When therefore the Lord knew how 
that the Pharisees had heard that Je- 
sus made and baptized more disciples 
than John ... he left Judrea and 
departed into Galilee" (John iv. 1, 
3}. If the light of the Sun of Right- 
eousness shone on the Jews hencefor- 
ward from the far-off shores of the 
Galilean lake, it was because they 
had refused and abhorred that light. 



(B.) DURATION OF OUR 
LORD'S MINISTRY. 

It is impossible to determine ex- 
actly from the Gospels the number 
of years during which the Redeemer 
exercised his ministry before the Pas- 
sion ; but the doubt lies between two 
and three; for the opinion, adopted 
from an interpretation of Isaiah lxi. 
2 by more than one of the ancients, | 
L2 



that it lasted only one year, can not be 
borne out (Euseb. iii. 24 ; Clem. Alex. 
Strom. 1 ; Origen, Princ. 4, 5). The 
data are to be drawn from St. John. 
This Evangelist mentions six feasts, 
at five of which Jesus was present ; 
the Passover that followed his baptism 
(John ii. 13) ; " a feast of the Jews '" 
(topTi) without the article, John v. 
1) ; a Passover during which Jesus 
remained in Galilee (John vi. 4) ; the 
Feast of Tabernacles to which the 
Lord went up privately (John vii. 2) ; 
the Feast of Dedication (John x. 22) ; 
and lastly the Feast of Passover, at 
which he suffered (John xii., xiii.). 
There are certainly three Passovers, 
and it is possible that "a feast" 
(John v. 1) may be a fourth. Upon 
this possibility the question turns. 
Liicke in his Commentary (vol. ii. p. 
1), in collecting with great research 
the various opinions on this point, is 
unable to arrive at any definite con- 
clusion upon it, and leaves it unsolved. 
But if this feast is not a Passover, 
then no Passover is mentioned by 
John between the first (John ii. 13) 
and that which is spoken of in the 
sixth chapter ; and the time between 
those two must be assumed to be a 
single year only. Now, although the 
record of John of this period contains 
but few facts, yet when all the Evan- 
gelists are compared, the amount of 
labor compressed into this single year 
would be too much for its compass. 
The time during which Jesus was 
baptizing (by his disciples) near the 
Jordan was probably considerable, and 
lasted till John's imprisonment (John 
iii. 22-36). The circuit round Gal- 
ilee (Matt. iv. 23-25) was a mission- 
ary journey through a country of con- 
siderable population, and containing 
two hundred towns ; and this would 
occupy some time. But another such 



250 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. Vm. 



journey, of the most comprehensive 
kind, is undertaken in the same year 
(Luke viii. 1), in which he "went 
throughout every city and village." 
And a third circuit of the same kind, 
and equally general (Matt. ix. 35-38), 
would close the same year. Is it at 
all probable that Jesus, after spending 
a considerable time in Judasa, would 
be able to make three circuits of Gal- 
ilee in the remainder of the year, 
preaching and doing wonders in the 
various places to which he came ? 
This would be more likely if the jour- 
neys were hurried and partial ; but all 
three are spoken of as though they 
were the very opposite. It is, to say 
the least, easier to suppose that the 
"feast" (John v. 1) was a Passover, 
dividing the time into two, and throw- 
ing two of these circuits into the 
second year of the ministry ; provided 
there be nothing to make this inter- 
pretation improbable in itself. The 
words arc, "After this there was a 
feast of the Jews ; and Jesus went up 
to Jerusalem." These two facts arc 
meant as cause and effect; the feast 
caused the visit. If so, it was prob- 
ably one of the three feasts at which 
the Jews were expected to appear be- 
fore God at Jerusalem.* Was it the 
Passover, the Pentecost, or the Feast 
of Tabernacles? In the preceding 
chapter the Passover has been spoken 
of as " the feast " (ver. 45) ; and if 
another feast were meant here the 
name of it would have been added, 
as in vii. 2, x. 22. The omission of 
the article is not decisive, for it occurs 
in other cases where the Passover is 
certainly intended (Matt, xxvii. 15; 
Mark xv. 6) ; nor is it clear that the 
Passover was called the feast, as the 

* This is an argument against the some- 
what arbitrary hypothesis tliat it was the 
Feast of Purim. 



most eminent, although the Feast of 
Tabernacles was sometimes so de- 
scribed. All that the omission could 
prove would be that the Evangelist did 
not think it needful to describe the feast 
more precisely. The words in John 
iv. 35, "There are yet four months 
and then cometh harvest," would 
agree with this, for the barley-harvest 
began on the 16th Nisan, and reck- 
oning back four months would bring 
this conversation to the beginning of 
December, i. e., the middle of Kisleu. 
If it be granted that our Lord is here 
merely quoting a common form of 
speech (Alford), still it is more likely 
that he would use one appropriate to 
the time at which he was speaking. 
And if these words were uttered in 
December, the next of the three great 
feasts -}ccurring would be the Pass- 
over. The shortness of the interval 
between v. 1 and vi. 4 would afford 
an objection, if it were not for the 
scantiness of historical details in the 
early part of the ministry in St. John : 
from the other Evangelists it appears 
that two great journeys might have 
to be included between these verses. 
Upon the whole, though there is noth- 
ing that amounts to proof, it is prob- 
able that there were four Passovers, 
and consequently that our Lord's 
ministry lasted somewhat more than 
three years, the " beginning of mira- 
cles " (John ii.) having been wrought 
before the first Passover. On data 
of calculation that have already been 
mentioned (p. 202), the year of the 
first of these Passovers was a.u.c. 780 
(a.d. 27), and the baptism of our 
Lord took place either in the begin- 
ning of that year or the end of the 
year preceding. The ministry of 
John the Baptist began in a.u.c. 779 
(a.d. 26). 



Chap. VIII. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



251 



(C.) GALILEE. 

This name, which in the Eoman 
age was applied to a large province, 
seems to have been originally con- 
fined to a little "circuit" (the He- 
brew word Galil, the origin of the 
later "Galilee," signifies a "circle, 
cr circuit ") of country round Kedesh- 
Naphtali, in whicti weve situated the 
twenty towns given by Solomon to Hi- 
ram, king of Tyre, as payment for his 
work in conveying timber from Leb- 
anon to Jerusalem (Josh. xx. 7 ; IK. 
ix. 11 ; LXX. raXikaia). They were 
then, or subsequently, occupied by 
strangers, and for this reason Isaiah 
gives to the district the name " Gal- 
ilee of the Gentiles" (Is. ix. 1. In 
Matt. iv. 15, TaXiXaia tojv kQv&v ; in 
1 Mace. v. 15, FaXiXaia aXXo<pvXwv). 
It is probable that the strangers in- 
creased in number, and became during 
the Captivity the great body of the in- 
habitants; extending themselves also 
over the surrounding country, they 
gave to their new territories the old 
name, until at length Galilee became 
one of the largest provinces of Pales- 
tine. In the time of the Maccabees 
Galilee contained only a few Jews 
living in the midst of a large heathen 
population (1 Mace. v. 20-23). Strabo 
states that in his day it was chiefly 
inhabited by Syrians, Phoenicians, 
and Arabs (xvi. p. 760) ; and Jo- 
sephus says that Greeks also dwelt in 
its cities (Vit. 12.) 

In the time of our Lord all Pales- 
tine was divided into three provinces, 
Judsea, Samaria, and Galilee (Acts 
ix. 31 ; Luke xvii. 11 ; Joseph. B. J. 
in. 3). The latter included the whole 



northern section of the country, name- 
ly, the ancient territories of Issachar, 
Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali. It 
was divided into two sections, " Low- 
er " and " Upper;" ?) Kara) kciI rj dvoj 
raXiXaia. A single glance at the 
country shows that the division was 
natural. Lower Galilee included the 
great plain of Esdraelon with its off- 
shoots, which run down to the Jordan 
and the Lake of Tiberias, and the 
whole of the hill-country adjoining it 
on the north, to the foot of the mount- 
ain-range. Upper Galilee embraced 
the whole mountain-range lying be- 
tween the upper Jordan and Phoeni- 
cia. To this region the name "Gal- 
ilee of the Gentiles " is given in the 
0. and N. T. (Is. ix. 1 ; Matt. iv. 15). 
The town of Capernaum, on the north 
shore of the lake, was in Upper Gal- 
ilee; and this fact is important, as 
showing how far the province ex- 
tended southward, and as proving 
that it, as well as Lower Galilee, 
touched the lake. 

After the destruction of Jerusalem, 
Galilee became the chief seat of Jew- 
ish schools of learning, and the resi- 
dence of their most celebrated Rab- 
bins. The National Council, or 
Sanhedrim, was taken for a time to 
Jabneh in Philistia, but was soon re- 
moved to Sepphoris, and afterward to 
Tiberias. The Mislma was here com- 
piled by Rabbi Judah Hakkodesh (cir. 
a.d. 109-220) ; and a few years after- 
ward the Gemara was added. Re- 
mains of splendid synagogues still ex- 
ist in many of the old towns and vil- 
lages, showing that from the second 
to the seventh century the Jews were 
as prosperous as they were numerous. 




Sidon. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY IN GALILEE, FROM AFTEE 
HIS SECOND PASSOVER, IN A.D. 28, TO NEAR THE FEAST OF 
TABERNACLES, A.D. 29. 

§ 1. Return of Jesus from Jerusalem to Galilee — The plucking of the ears 
of corn on the Sabbath — The healing of the withered hand — Christ 
rebuts the charge of Sabbath-breaking — Plot of the Pharisees and the 
Herodians against him. § 2. He retires to the shore of the Galilean 
lake, and is followed by multitudes — His miracles prove him the servant 
of God predicted by Isaiah. § 3. Preparations for organizing the 
Christian Church — Choice of the Twelve Apostles — The Sermon on 
the Mount — Certain preliminary questions discussed — Unity of the Dis- 
course, and its identity in Matthew and Luke. § 4. The Time and 
Scene — Mount of the Beatitudes — Choice of the Apostles — Char- 
acters of their office — Personal qualifications — The Lists of the 
Twelve Apostles. § 5. The Sermon on the Mount ; the Law of 
the New Dispensation. § 6. Effect of the discourse — Jesus re- 
turns to Capernaum — Healing of the Centurion's servant — Raising 
of the widow's son to life. § 7. Last mention of John the Baptist — His 
message to Jesus — Christ's final testimony to John — Denunciation of 
the Galilean cities — Thanksgiving for that the- Gospel is revealed to 
babes. § 8. Jesus, at a Pharisee's table, is anointed by a sinful woman 
— He forgives her sins, and rebukes the scornful Pharisees — The wom- 
an not Mary Magdalene — Distinction between this anointing of Jesus 
as the Christ, and his anointing for bis burial by Mary of Bethany. 
§ 9. Second Circuit through Galilee— The, women who ministered to Je- 
sus — His Miracles, Discourses, and Parables — He stills the Storm on the 
Lake of Galilee — The Gadarene demoniac, § 10. Third Circuit through 



A.D. 28. Charge of Sabbath- Breaking. 253 

Galilee — The Apostles sent forth — Their commission and success. § 11. 
Herod believes Jesus to be John restored to life, and desires to see him 
— Jesus retires by ship to a lonely spot on the lake, and is followed by 
multitudes. § 12. Approach of the Passover, to which Jesus does rot 
go — First miracle of the loaves and fishes — Its effect on the Galileans— 
They wish to make Jesus king — Voyage of the disciples across the lake 
— Jesus walks upon the water, and saves Peter — The ensuing contro- 
versy — Many desert Jesus — Peter's confession. § 13. Jesus watched 
by emissaries from Jerusalem — He retires into Phoenicia and Decapo- 
lis — The Syro-Phcenician woman — Healing of the deaf and dumb — Sec- 
ond miracle of the loaves and fishes — Encounters with the Pharisees, 
Saddncees, and Herodians — The sign of the prophet Jonah. § 14. Je- 
sus ascends the Upper Jordan to Caesarea Philippi — Peter's full confes- 
sion of the Christ — The Rock on which Christ's Church is built ; and 
the Keys of the kingdom of heaven — Christ predicts his Passion, and 
rebukes the' remonstrance of Peter. § 15. Christ's Transfiguration — 
Discourse concerning Elias — The demoniac Child — Prayer and Fasting 
— Renewed prediction of Chi'ist's Passion. § 16. His last return to Ca- 
pernaum — The contest for precedence — Example of the little child ; and 
the ensuing discourse — Christ's final departure from Galilee. 

§ 1. Once more we behold Jesus returning from the city 
of his father David, where he had proved himself the prom- 
ised spiritual king, rejected and persecuted with a spite that 
was literally deadly. Though his retirement from Jerusalem 
removed him beyond the immediate danger that the rulers 
might have found means to take his life, either in a tumult 
or by persuading the Roman procurator, he was still pursued 
by their hostility. During this second period of his Galilean 
ministry, we often see how closely he was watched by the 
emissaries of the Jewish rulers. On his very journey he was 
followed by the same charge which had formed their pretext 
for plotting against his life at Jerusalem. The innocent act 
of his hungry disciples, which was sanctioned by a merciful 
law, 1 of plucking and eating the ripe ears, as they walked 
through the corn-fields on the Sabbath, was construed into 
Sabbath-breaking. 2 At least, the view that the Feast of John 
v. was a Passover, compared with the order of the other 
Evangelists, may justify us in regarding the controversy that 
arose out of the act of the disciples as having occurred on 
the way back from Jerusalem to Galilee. At all events, the 
fact of the corn being ripe points to the time of the Pass- 
over; though it would depend on the species of the grain, 
whether this was immediately before the Passover, when the 

1 Deut. xxiii. 25. The disciples j uistry of the Jewish doctors found the 
must have been living a hard and , sin in the manual act of rubbing the 
poor life, to resort to such means of j ears of corn in the hands, as a species 
sustenance. | of that servile labor which was forbid- 

2 Some think that the subtle cas- ' den by the Law. 



254 Sequel of Christ 1 s Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX 

barley-harvest began, or later, when the wheat was ripe. 
With this question another is connected, concerning the 
phrase " the second-first Sabbath," 3 of which the most proba- 
ble interpretation is that of Wieseler, that it was the " first 
Sabbath of the second year after the Sabbatic year." 4 

In reply to the charge of Sabbath-breaking made by the 
Pharisees against the disciples, Jesus reminds them that 
David, whose example they are not likely to challenge, ate the 
sacred shew-bread in the tabernacle, which it was not lawful 
to eat. The priests might partake of it, but not a stranger. 5 
David, on the principle that mercy was better than sacrifice, 6 
took it and gave it to the young men that were with him 
that they might not perish for hunger. In order further to 
show that a literal mechanical observance of the law of the 
Sabbath would lead to absurdities, Jesus reminds them that 
this law is perpetually set aside on account of another : " The 
priests profane the Sabbath and are blameless." 7 The work 
of sacrifice, the placing of the shew-bread, go on upon the Sab- 
bath, and labor even on that day may be done by priests, and 
may please God. It was the root of the Pharisees' fault that 
they thought sacrifice better than mercy, ritual exactness 
more than love : " If ye had known what this meaneth, I will 
have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned 
the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sab- 
bath day." 8 These last words are inseparable from the mean- 
ing of our Lord's answer. In pleading the example of David, 
the king and prophet, and of the priests in the temple, the 
Lord tacitly implies the greatness of his own position. He is 
indeed Prophet, Priest, and King ; and had he been none of 
these, the argument would have been not merely incomplete, 
but misleading. It is undeniable that the law of the Sabbath 
was very strict. Against labors as small as that of winnow- 
ing the corn a severe penalty was set. Our Lord quotes 
cases where the law is superseded or set aside, because he is 
One who has power to do the same. And the rise of a new 
law is implied in those words which St. Mark alone has re- 
corded : " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
the Sabbath." The law upon the Sabbath was made in love 
to men, to preserve for them a due measure of rest, to keep 
room for the worship of God. The Son of Man has power to 



3 2a/3/3arov SivTipoirpojTov. 

4 Matt. xii. 1-8 ; Mark ii. 23-28 ; 
Luke vi. 1-11. Others explain it as 
the first Sabbath after the second day 
of the Passover. 



Ex. xxix. 33 ; Lev. xxiv, 5, 9. 
Hos.vi. 6. 
Matt. xii. 5. 
Matt. xii. 7, 8. 



A.D. 28. 



Multitudes Disturb his Retirement. 



255 



re-adjust this law, if its work is done, or if men are fit to re- 
ceive a higher. 9 

The lesson then given was repeated on the following Sab- 
bath, when Christ healed a man with a withered hand in the 
synagogue, (probably at Capernaum), and silenced the Jews, 
who were Avatching to see if he would perform the miracle, 
by the argument applied by themselves in their own affairs, 
that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath days. The appli- 
cation to their consciences was all the keener, as, while he 
was doing good and saving life, they were doing evil and 
seeking to destroy his ; and, stung to madness by his discern- 
ment of their secret thoughts, they began to plot against him 
with the adherents of Herod Antipas, the political party call- 
ed Herodians, 10 thus endangering his security even in Galilee. 

§ 2. Upon this, Jesus withdrew to some retired spot on the 
shores of the lake of Galilee ; but even here he was followed 
by a multitude from all pprHs of the Holy Land, and even be' 
yond its borders, from Idumaea on the south, to Tyre and Si- 
doi^ on the north. As they thronged the shores of the lake, 
Jesus addressed them from a small vessel, which he desired 
his disciple?, to provide. He healed their diseases and cast 
out unclean spirits, charging both the patients and the de- 
mons not to make him known. In these acts of mercy, ex- 
tended to many who were aliens to the commonwealth of Is- 
rael, and yet withdrawn so carefully from all public parade, 
Matthew sees the fulfillment of Isaiah's great prophecy of the 
Messiah as the merciful judge of Gentiles as well as Jews : — 
the chosen and beloved servant of God, yet so meek that he 
would not strive or cry for his rights, nor lift up the voice of 
self-assertion among the haunts of men ; — so merciful that he 
would not break the bruised reed as useless, nor quench the 
smoking lamp-wick as hopeless ; and yet so powerful, by this 
very might of gentleness, that his just judgments should 
finally be crowned with universal victory, and his name com- 
mand the faith of all the nations. 11 

§ 3. In this assembly on the shores of the lake of Galilee, 
we see at length all the elements of the visible Church of 
Christ separated from the world ; and, if among those who 
had followed him into these solitudes, there were secret un- 
believers, or opponents, or even traitors, we need be the less 
surprised, as their type was found even among those whom 



9 These remarks are from Arch- 
bishop Thomson's art. Jesus Christ, 
in the Diet, of the Bible, vol. i. p. 
1055. 



10 Matt. xii. 9-14 ; Mark iii. 1-6 
Luke vi. 6-11. 

"Matr. xii. 15-21; Mark iii. 7-12 
copap. Is- xi. 10, xl. 1-3. 



256 Sequel of Christ' 's Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX 

he himself chose for his ministers and companions. So now 
he proceeds to provide for his Church the teachers who were 
to guide them, and the doctrines which they were to teach and 
the people to receive ; the former by appointing the Twelve 
Apostles, the latter by the discourse known as the Sermon on 
the Mount. Not that his appointments were, in either case, 
complete or final. Much was left to be ordered and revealed 
in the future, by his own teaching, by the free action of spir- 
itual life in his people, and especially by the direction of the 
Holy Spirit, poured out after he had left the earth. The 
ministers whom he now appointed were those needed to bear 
witness to his own deeds and words ; the truths he taught 
were those essential to the very entrance into his kingdom. 

One or two preliminary questions need to be cleared up. 
St. John's silence alike concerning the appointment of the 
Apostles and the Sermon on the Mount is at once explained 
by the supplemental character of his Gospel. St. Mark's 
omission of the Sermon on the Mount in the regular order of 
the narrative, though he gives many of its precepts as they 
were repeated by our Saviour on other occasions, may be ac- 
counted for by the relation in which his Gospel stands to that 
of Matthew. It seems quite clear that Mark wrote with 
some knowledge of the Gospel of Matthew, and with the es- 
pecial view of giving an account of Christ's ministry briefer 
on the whole, but more minute in some of the details. He 
therefore omits many things, which could be passed over 
without disturbing the order of the narrative, and which 
Matthew had already sufficiently recorded, and among them 
the Sermon on the Mount. 

The comparison of Matthew and Luke has raised the ques- 
tion whether the two Evangelists record the same or differ- 
ent discourses. The different order in which the discourse 
stands in the two Gospels is of no importance ; for, as already 
observed, Matthew evidently assigns it as early a place as 
possible. As to his not mentioning, till much later, the ap- 
pointment of the Apostles, which Luke places immediately 
before the Sermon on the Mount, the fact is that Matthew 
does not directly relate their appointment, but the commis- 
sion given them when they were first sent forth, and he takes 
this occasion incidentally to mention their name. The posi- 
tive arguments for the identity of the two discourses are 
overwhelming, and the very variations tend to establish an 
essential sameness. Both begin with the same blessings, and 
end with the same striking parable concerning the difference 
between hearing and doing. Between this common begin, 




' I"' 7 ' , s x ~'< o- ^r^iz s 




A.D. 28. The Mount of Beatitudes. 259 

ning and ending, there is much in Matthew which Luke does 
not give, and some passages in Lute which do not appear in 
Matthew; but the former are just those that relate to the 
laws, traditions, and practices of the Jews, while the latter 
come in with such natural force and beauty, as further illus- 
trations and steps in the argument, as to put their real con- 
nection with it beyond a question : while the passages com- 
mon to the two Evangelists are perfectly identical in sub- 
stance, follow in the same order, and contain those truths 
which are of universal concern to the disciples of Christ in 
every age. St. Luke's greater brevity may also be explained 
by his repetition of the like sentiments in other passages of 
his Gospel. 

But these repetitions, as well as those already noticed in 
Mark, have been urged as arguments for supposing that the 
so-called " Sermon on the Mount" is but a collection into one 
view of doctrines and precepts uttered by our Lord on various 
occasions. Doubtless he did repeat, again and again, these 
most essential elements of his teaching, and such repetitions 
serve to indicate the Sermon on the Mount as really the pre- 
liminary abstract of his doctrine.™ That the truths thus re- 
peated were really uttered in this connected discourse, is the 
positive statement of Matthew and Luke, confirmed by the 
common circumstances that attend it in the two Gospels. 
Both mark the same period of our Lord's ministry, when the 
fame of his miracles and preaching had spread through all 
parts of the land, and had brought multitudes around him. 
Both name the same locality, a mountain, which Jesus first 
uses as a place of retirement and prayer, and of private inter- 
course with his disciples, and from which he afterward 
comes down to some elevated station, from which to address 
both them and the people together." Both represent our 



12 Stier, Words of Jesus, i. 93. 

13 This view removes the trivial ob- 
jection that has been raised from the 
comparison of Matt. v. 1 with Luke 
vi. 17. The former passage agrees 



tops, called the Horns of Hattin, from 
the village of Hattin at its base." 
(See Map, p. 240.) " The situation so 
strikingly coincides with the intima- 
tions of the Gospel narrative, as al- 



with Luke vi. 12; and, in the latter, most to force the inference that in 
the words kiri ro-rrou 7teSlvov, which j this instance, the eyes of those who 
our translators render in the plain, \ selected the spot were for once rightly 
suggest rather some platform, such as j guided. It is the only height seen in 
is described in the following quota- j this direction from the shores of the 
tion from Dean Stanley's work : — lake of Gennesareth. The plain on 
" According to tradition, the ' Mount I which it stands is easily accessible 
of Beatitudes' lies a little west of the i from the lake, and from that plain to 
Sea of Galilee, and is a square-shaped j the summit is but a few minutes' 
hill, about 60 feet in height, with two ! walk. The platform at the top is 



260 Sequel of Christ's Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX 

Lord, directly after the discourse, as entering Capernaum ; 
and both record the healing of the centurion's servant as at 
once following upon his return to that city. 

§ 4. Our Saviour's whole position at this period of his min- 
istry not only suggested, but may even be said to have claim- 
ed some such public exposition of his doctrine as we find in 
the Sermon on the Mount. His mission had been unfolded 
step by step, till it lay fully open to the inquiries of his disci- 
ples and the objections of his foes ; and the time had come to 
rebuke malignant cavils, to correct erroneous expectations^ 
and to satisfy humble and earnest inquiries. The multitudes 
who had followed him to the shores of the lake were in a 
condition not unlike those whom Moses had led out into the 
wilderness. They had seen and heard enough to prepare 
them to hear the law of God from his own lips ; and they are 
assembled before a mount, whose very name marks it as far 
more glorious than Sinai, the Mount of Beatitudes. But, in 
this case, as in that, a solemn pause precedes the utterance of 
the divine word. The Mediator himself is called to close and 
secret communion with God, while the people have an inter- 
val of awful expectation. Alone, like Moses, Jesus " went up 
into the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer 
to God." 14 

At break of day he called to him his disciples. That this 
term signifies a select body, chosen by himself from the mass 
of his followers, is clear from the words of Mark, " He calleth 
whom he would ; and they came unto him." Out of this 
number he chose tivelve, whom he named Apostles, 15 and or- 
dained them, "that they should be with him, and that he 
might send them forth to preach, and to have power to heal 
sicknesses, and to cast out devils." For these works they 
afterward received a special commission from him, and per- 
formed them, as his emissaries, during his ministry on earth. 
After his ascension, it became their chief mission to bear wit- 
ness to Christ's resurrection, as the crowning fact of his course, 

evidently suitable for the collection j disciples, when they retired for soli- 



of a multitude, and corresponds pre- 
cisely to the 'level place' (tottov 
7ridivov) to which he would 'come 
down ' as from one of its higher horns 



tude from the shores of the sea, and 
also to the crowds who assembled 
' from Galilee, from Decapolis, from 
Jerusalem, from Judaea, and from be- 



to address the people. Its situation yond Jordan.'" — (Stanley, S. 8f P., 
is central both to the peasants of p. 360). 

14 Luke vi. 12. 

15 Apostle is a Greek word — a7r<To- 
toKoq, "one sent forth," from. air<y6> 



the Galilean hills and the fishermen 
of the Galilean lake, between which 
it stands, and would therefore be a 
natural resort both to Jesus and his 1 rAXw, " I send forth." 



A.D. 28. The Apostles Chosen. 261 

and by this evidence to call both Jews and Gentiles to be- 
lieve the Gospel. For this their constant personal intercourse 
with Christ was the first qualification; and therefore Peter 
speaks of them as " witnesses chosen before of God, even us, 
who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the 
dead." 18 So, when the vacant place of Judas had to be filled 
up, his successor was chosen, according to the rule laid down 
by Peter, " out of these men which have companied with us 
all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 
beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day 
that he was taken up from us, to be a witness with us of 
his resurrection." 17 To this rule the case of St. Paul is only 
an apparent exception. His want of fellowship with Jesus 
upon earth was supplied by those special revelations, to which 
he appeals in proof of his apostolic mission—" Am I not an 
apostle? Have not I seen Christ?" — "Paul, an apostle of 
Jesus Christ by the will of God/" — "an apostle, not of men, 
neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, 
who raised him from the dead." The marks of the apostolic 
office, then, were these : — personal intercourse Avith Christ ; 
appointment by himself ; the gift of the Holy Spirit, breathed 
upon them by Christ and more openly conferred, according to 
his promise, on the day of Pentecost, giving them power to 
work miracles and to speak in foreign tongues ; to which was 
added the power to confer that gift on others. The union 
of these signs distinguished the Apostles from every other 
class of ministers. The number of the Apostles, correspond- 
ing to that of the twelve tribes of Israel, is clearly symbolical 
of their primary mission to the Jews. 

Among the disciples chosen to this office, we find, as might 
have been expected, those who had been the first to follow 
Christ, and who had already received from him a special call. 
Though the call of all alike proceeded from their Master's 
grace, we can not fail to notice those personal qualifications 
which he himself condescended to own and use in his serv- 
ice : — the firm faith of Peter (the Mock) ; the energy of the 
sons of Zebedee, whom he surnamed Boanerges {Sons of 
Thunder) , united in John with that spirit of love which made 
him the beloved disciple ; the fraternal and friendly affection 
of Andrew and Philip ; the devotion and gnileless sincerity 
of Nathanael ; the self-sacrifice of Matthew ; the practical 

16 Acts x. 41. The superiority of [the people" is demonstrated by Bp. 
such evidence to that which might ! Horsley, in his Sermons ontJie liesur' 
have been furnished if the risen Sav- rection. 
iour had been "shown openly to all 17 Acts i, 21, 22, 



262 



Sequel of Christ's Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX. 



godliness of James, and the firm resolve of his brother Judas 
to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the 
saints ;" and, at the opposite extremity of the moral scale, 
that love of the world, which made Judas Iscariot an aAvful 
example, that even one of those chosen by Christ to live with 
him and hear his word could yet betray his Master and prove 
to have been all along " a son of perdition " — for " he knew 
from the beginning, who should betray him." 

We have seen the conversion and call of seven of the Apos- 
tles. The rest (except perhaps Judas Iscariot) were also 
Galileans, and had probably joined the Master during his cir- 
cuit of Galilee. The following are their names and order, as 
given by the three Evangelists (besides the list of the Eleven 
in Acts i. 13) : 



Matthew. 

1 . Simon Peter, and 

2. Andrew, his brother. 

3. James, and ) sons of 

4. John, I Zebedee. 

5. Philip, and 

6. Bartholomew. 

7. Thomas, and 

8. Matthew, the publican. 

9. James, the son of Alplueus. 

10. Lebbams, sumamed Thaddseus. 

11. Simon, the Canaauite. 

12. Judas Iscariot, " who also 

betrayed Him." 



Mark. 

Simon Peter. 
James, and ) sumamed 
John, J Boanerges. 

Andrew. 
Philip. 

Bartholomew. 
Matthew. 
Thomas. 

James, the son of Alphasus. 
Thaddaeus. 

Simon, the Canaanite. 
Judas Iscariot, " who also 
betrayed Him." 



Luke. 

1. Simon Peter, and 

2. Andrew, his brother. 

3. James, and 
! 4. John. 

i 5. Philip, and 
I 6. Bartholomew. 
7. Matthew, and 
I 8. Thomas. 

I 9. James, the son of Alphaeus. 
j 10. Simon Zelotes. 
111. Judas, the brother of James. 18 
| 12. Judas Iscariot, "which was 
I also the traitor." 



In the form of the list, especially in Matthew and Luke, it 
is remarkable how much the names go in pairs. This cir- 
cumstance confirms the assumption that Bartholomew is the 
Nathanael of St. John, who was brought to Jesus by Philip. 

§ 5. The close connection between the appointment of the 
Apostles and the Sermon on the Mount is seen in the state- 
ment of St. Luke, that Jesus " came down with them" to ad- 
dress " the company of his disciples and the great multitude 
of people out of all Judaaa and Jerusalem, and from the sea- 
coast of Tyre and Sidon." 19 As those twelve chosen minis- 
ters stood with him on the Mount of Beatitudes in the morn- 
ing glow that shone upon the lake, they resembled the heads 
of the twelve tribes, who were called up with Moses to hear 
the law given upon Sinai. The discourse which follows was 
spoken first to them, as the manual of their instructions, the 
code of the new kingdom of which they were the new minis- 
ters, the outline of the truths they were to teach. It is ad- 
dressed also to the disciples in general, in that and every age, 



18 Luke vi. 16; where the original 
is 'lovSag 'laicwfiov. Respecting the 
whole question of their relationship 



to each other and to Jesus, see Note* 
and Illustrations (A). 
13 Luke vi. 17 



A.D. 28. The Sermon on the Mount 263 

proclaiming the spirit of the new dispensation, to which they 
profess to have submitted, the truths they have to learn, the 
obligations they have to fulfill, the tests by which they must 
be tried, the characters they must bear, if they are indeed the 
disciples of Jesus. 

It was uttered to the disciples in the hearing of all the peo- 
pie, to whom, as representing the whole world, it points out 
the only path of duty and happiness, that which gives en- 
trance to the kingdom of heaven; invites them into that 
kingdom by the most alluring promises of blessedness ; claims 
their submission to its just and holy laws ; and warns them 
of the danger and ruin of remaining without it. To all these 
classes it exhibits the characters that all men must bear, the 
truths that all must learn, the spirit that all must cultivate, 
the life that all must live, if they would enter into the king- 
dom of heaven, and ensure the salvation of their souls. It is 
to the New Covenant what the law given from Sinai was to 
the Old; and, to exhibit the unity of the Covenants, its pre- 
cepts are based upon the Ten Commandments, unfolded in 
all their spiritual breadth, cleared of all the human interpre- 
tations by which their spirit had been bound down or fritter- 
ed away, and expanded into the new law of Love. 20 The key- 
note to this, the main body of the discourse, is struck by the 
words : — " Think not that I am come to destroy the law and 
the prophets ; I am not come to destroy but to fulfill ; " and, 
" except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the 
scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the king- 
dom of heaven." 21 The principle of all Christian goodness, 
and especially of all Christian love, is laid in restoration to 
the image of God himself : — " Be ye therefore perfect, even 
as your Father which is in heaven is perfect ; " " Be ye mer- 
ciful, as your Father also is merciful." And its practical 
climax is attained in the Christian law of brotherly kindness 
and charity : — " As ye Avould that men should do to you, do 
ye also to them likewise." 

To these precepts there is a preface and a conclusion. The 
former insists on the spirit and conditions of entrance into 
the kingdom of heaven, by repentance, humility, faith in Him 
and endurance for his sake. But these conditions, unlike the 
curses of the law, are pronounced as blessings and sustained 
by promises. 22 In the conclusion, the principle of judgment 
is brought in, to enforce all that has been said : character is 

30 Matt. v. 21, vii. 12 ; Luke vi. 27-36. 21 Matt. v. 17-20, 

22 Matt. v. 1-12: Luke vi. 20-26= 



264 Sequel of Christ 1 s Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX. 

brought to the test of deeds, not words ; and a final note of 
warning and promise, equally mingled, assures the hearers 
that as' they sow, so shall they reap; everlasting life from liv- 
ing faith in Christ, destruction from pursuing their self-will. 
§ 6. The Sermon on the Mount carried to the minds of the 
hearers the conviction that Jesus was, to say the least, far 
above all their ordinary teachers ; " for he taught them as 
one having authority, and not as the scribes ; " and he was 
followed by a new concourse of disciples, as he returned into 
Capernaum. 23 Here he healed the servant of the Roman cen- 
turion, who seems to have been a Jewish proselyte, and 
whose faith, greater than was found in Israel, called forth the 
contrast, often afterward repeated, between the multitudes 
of Gentiles who should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, and " the children of the 
kingdom," who should be " cast out into outer darkness." 24 
At the gate of Nain, near Capernaum, he repeated by a single 
word the miracle, which Elisha had only performed with re- 
iterated and agonizing prayers, of restoring the life of an only 
son to his widowed mother. 25 



mg the 
; notic< 



§ 7. About this time we have the last notice of John the 
Baptist before his death. He was still shut up in his prison, 
which, Josephus tells us, was at Machasrus in Peraea, a for- 
tress celebrated in the history of the Asmonaeans and Hero- 
dians. 26 Here his disciples came to tell him of the deeds of 
Christ. We can not suppose that John himself had had a 
moment's doubt of the truth he himself had first proclaimed, 
that Jesus was the Messiah. On a former occasion, 27 he had 
said enough to clear up all uncertainty and remove all jeal- 
ousy from the minds of his disciples : but, less instructed and 
less magnanimous than their master, they still need a further 
lesson ; and for this John sends two of them to Christ. They 
found him in the act of healing many of their diseases, cast- 
ing out unclean spirits, and preaching the Gospel to the poor. 
His only reply is to bid them report to John what they had 
seen and heard, which he would doubtless tell them were the 
signs of Messiah foretold by the prophets, 28 and he adds a 



23 Matt. vii. 28, viii. 1. 

24 Matt. viii. 5-13 ; Luke vii. 1-10. 

25 Luke vii. 11-17. See Keble, 
ChristianYear : " Burial of the Dead." 
The site of the village is the modern 
Nein, situated on the north-western 

edge of the "Little Hermon," where I 5, § 2. 27 John iii 

the ground falls into the Dlain of Ks ! ' 28 Is. xxxv. 5, xli» 6. 7 ; Ixi. 1 



draelon. The entrance to the place 
must probably always have been up 
the steep ascent from the plain ; and 
here, on the west side of the village, 
the rock is full of sepulchral caves. 
26 Matt. xi. 2 ; Joseph- Ant. xviii 



A.D. 28. Death of John the Baptist. 265 

gentle rebuke to their slowness of belief. 2 " With this mes- 
sage he sends them back to John, whose life was soon after 
terminated. Nothing but the death of the Baptist would 
satisfy the resentment of Herodias. Though foiled once, she 
continued to watch her opportunity, which at length arrived. 
A court festival was kept at Machaarus in honor of the king's 
birthday. After supper, the daughter of Herodias came in 
and danced before the company, and so charmed was the te- 
trarch by her grace, that he promised with an oath to give 
her whatever she should ask. Salome, prompted by her aban- 
doned mother, demanded the head of John the Baptist. The 
promise had been given in the hearing of his distinguished 
guests, and so Herod, though loth to be made the instrument 
of so bloody a work, gave instructions to an officer of his 
guard, who went and executed John in the prison, and his 
head was brought to feast the eyes of the adulteress whose sins 
he had denounced. 

Meanwhile Jesus, turning to the people, vindicates John 
from any suspicion of wavering or time-serving that his mes- 
sage might have raised, and bears testimony to his true char- 
acter as " a prophet, yea, more than a prophet." They had 
gone forth to the wilderness to see him, and what had they 
beheld? No pliant reed, that would bend before the wind 
of adversity : no dainty courtier, to fear a king's frown or a 
queen's hatred. No ! he was the very Elijah predicted by 
the prophets as the Messiah's herald ; but their childish folly, 
never knowing what to ask for or expect, vented itself in dis- 
content and unbelief alike against the stern asceticism of 
John and the winning love of Jesus. "But Wisdom is justi. 
fied of all her children." And now the time was already 
come for Christ to reveal himself as a judge, to those who 
would not accept him as a Saviour. The cities of Galilee 
most favored by his ministry — Chorazin, Bethsaida, and es- 
pecially Capernaum — are doomed to a far heavier judgment 
than Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrha. Such words, 
uttered now over Galilee, as afterward over Judasa and Jeru- 
salem, show the wounded sympathies of the human friend, 
as well as the just indignation of the divine Judge ; and Je- 
sus finds his only consolation in thankful acknowledgment of 
the Father's wisdom in hiding the mysteries of the kingdom 
from those wise in their own conceit, and revealing them to 
babes. None may attempt to penetrate the mystery of this 
humble submission of the Son, in his character of Mediator, 

29 Matt. xi. 1-C ; Luke vii. 18-22. 
M 



266 Sequel to Christ's Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX. 

to the Father's will; but it has a practical aspect, which 
Christ himself proceeds to enforce, as an example to all who 
labor under the burdens and weariness of the world, to come 
to him and learn the like spirit of meekness and humility, as 
the only means of finding rest to their souls. "For my 
yoke " — this of meek submission to God — " is easy, and my 
burden is light." 30 

§ 8. Abundant as were the proofs that Jesus was the Mes- 
siah, the Christ,heh&& not yet been actually anointed. This 
act of consecration was at length performed, not by the high- 
priest in the temple court, amid the acclamations of " God 
save the King," as Zadok and Nathan had anointed Solomon, 
but at a banquet in the house of a Pharisee named Simon, 
who had scorned to render to Jesus even the common offices 
of hospitality. There, as Jesus was reclining at the table, a 
degraded woman stole behind his couch, washing with her 
tears of penitence the feet for which Simon had offered no 
water, and having wiped them with the hair of her head, she 
kissed them in token of homage, and anointed them with 
some choice unguent from an alabaster box, the purchase 
doubtless of her evil gains. The Pharisee's indignation at 
her presence was almost forgotten in his satisfaction at 
Christ's want of discernment and apparent degradation. 
" This man," thought he to himself, " if he had been a proph- 
et, would have known who and what manner of woman this 
is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner." Our Lord replies 
to the unuttered thought by a parable which leads Simon to 
confess that they love most who have had most forgiven; 
and then, turning to the woman, with all the authority of the 
Anointed of Jehovah, he declares the forgiveness of her many 
sins for her much love, and dismisses her in peace ; while the 
Pharisees only dare to murmur within their hearts, " Who is 
this that forgiveth sins also ?" 31 

No reader, with a mind unmystified by tradition, could fail 
to understand the delicacy which keeps the evangelist silent 
about this woman's name. The assumption — most unfortu- 
nately countenanced by the heading of the chapter in our ver- 
sion — that she was Mary Magdelene, is only based on our find- 
ing Mary presently afterward mentioned among the women 
who ministered to Jesus, and as one out of whom he had 
cast seven devils. This phrase must here, as in every other 
passage, be taken literally, not figuratively for sins ; and thus 
it implies an intensity of demoniacal possession utterly incom- 

90 Matt. xi. 7-30 ; Luke vii. 24-35. 31 Luke vii. 36-50. 



A.D. 28. 



Christ Anointed by the Sinner. 



267 



patible with a life of profligacy. Argument is, however, 
almost wasted on an error which has no evidence on its side, 
except that mere sequence of the narrative, which would just 
as well prove Joanna, or Susanna, or any one of the " many 
others," to have been the pardoned sinner. The loss of any 
countenance to the legends and works of art which have 
sprung from the mistake is the less to be regretted, as their 
iufluence is at least questionable ; while the great moral of 
our Lord's unbounded mercy, even to those sinners for whom 
the world has none, needs no aid from those who even go 
so far as to stain the purity of the family of Bethany by 
identifying that Mary at once with Mary Magdalene and the 
sinner. 

That repetition of the act by Mary, the sister of Lazarus, 
which forms the pretext for this last assumption, had a pur- 
pose and spirit altogether different, though there was a cer 
tain natural resemblance in the manner of performing it. 32 
Each showed sacrifice in the precious gift she brought; but 
with the one it was an offering of penitence, with the other of 
pure devotion. The " sinner " anointed Christ as the " Prince 
and Saviour, who gave repentance to Israel and remission of 
sin :" Mary, whom Jesus had long since loved, 33 gave the 
funeral unction to the body of her dear friend, in prospect of 
his death. 

§ 9. Jesus now made-a Second Circuit of Galilee, attended 
by the Twelve Apostles, and by certain women who, having 
been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, proved their grati- 
tude by ministering to him of their substance. Such minis- 
try, the chief social comfort of our Lord's lonely life, followed 
him to his death and burial ; and some of these devoted 
women were 

; ' Last at the cross, and earliest at the tomb." 

Such was Mary, surnamed Magdalene, from her native village 



32 Matt. xxvi. 7; Mark xiv. 3 ; John 
xi. 2, xii. 3, foil. If it were allow- 
able to argue from such minute points 
at ail, it might be urged that the wip- 
ing with the hair was in the one case 
before, in the other after the anoint- 
ing. That the feet were anointed, 
and not the head, in both cases, may 
have some symbolical meaning, or 
may have been only a sign of the hu- 
mility which did not venture to as- 
sume a priestly function. But as the 
times and places were evidently so 



different, the resemblance between 
the acts can be no argument for the 
identity of the actor ; and the argu- 
ment that John xi. 2 can not refer by 
anticipation to John xii. 3 is simply 
absurd. If we might indulge in con 
jectural identifications, we should be 
inclined to suspect, from the real 
likeness of spirit, that the Simon of 
the former scene was the father of 
Judas Iscariot, the fault-finder in the 
latter. 

33 John xi. 5. 



268 Sequel of Christ's Galilean Ministry. Cjiap.ix. 

of Magdala, 34 who is now mentioned for the first time, in asso* 
ciation with Joanna, the wife of Chnza, Herod's steward, and 
Susanna, and many others. 35 The chief events of this circuit 
were, the healing of a blind and dumb demoniac, followed by 
a controversy with the Pharisees, who charged Jesus with 
casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub ; 36 the reproof of 
the Pharisees for seeking a sign, in which Jonah's three days' 
confinement in the fish is made a type of our Lord's burial ; 37 
the visit of our Lord's mother and brethren, which called 
forth the declaration, that his true disciples are his nearest 
relatives ; 38 the stern denunciation of the Pharisees, and the 
solemn warnings to all the people concerning faithfulness and 
watchfulness, 39 enforced by the use he makes of the fate of 
Pilate's victims and those crushed by the tower of Siloam, as 
well as by the parable of the barren fig-tree ; 40 the great para- 
ble of the fSoioer, and the other parables concerning the king- 
dom of heaven. 41 The same evening on which these parables 
were spoken, Jesus dismissed the multitudes that followed 
him, and took ship to cross to the east side of the lake. On 
the voyage he performed the miracle which he afterward re- 
peated, stilling a raging storm by his word, and thus again 
showing himself to the affrighted disciples as Lord of the most 
ungovernable powers of nature. To them the miracle was 
the more striking from their daily occupation among those 
waters. 42 

The country of Gadara (or Gergasa), 43 on the east side of 
the lake, was now the scene of one of Christ's greatest miracles, 
the healing of the man possessed by a legion of devils, who 

34 This was one of the many "Mig-j 43 In the Gospel of Matthew (viii. 
dols " (watch-towers) of Palestine, ! 28) we have the word Gergesenes 
and is probably the modern el-MJedjei, ! (rtpynrnvwv, instead of Tadapi)vwv), 
on the W. side of the lake, about 3 which seems to be the same as Ger- 

gashites in Gen. xv. 21, and Deut. vii. 

1, whom Jerome locates on the shore 

of the sea of Tiberias. Origen also 

Luke xi. 14, 15, 17,23. , says that a city called Gergesa an- 

37 Matt. xii. 38-45; Luke xi. 16, ciently stood on the eastern side of 

24-36. i the lake. Even were this true, still 

3B Matt. xii. 46-50; Mark lii. 31- j the other Gospels would be strict- 

35 ; Luke viii. 19-21. j ly accurate. Gadara was a larpe 

39 Luke xi. 37-54 ; xii. j city, and its district would include 

. 40 Lukexiii. 1-9. [Gergesa. But it must be re mem be r- 

41 Matt. xiii. ; Mark iv. 1-34 ; Luke ; ed that the most ancient MSS. give 



35 Luke viii. 1-3. 

30 Matt. xii. 22-37; Markiii. 19-30; 



viii. 4-18. On the subject of our 
Lord's Parables in general, see Notes 
unci Illustrations (B). 

"•Matt. viii. 18-27; Mark iv 
41 ; Luke viii. 22-25. 



the word Gerasenes ( Ttpacnviov ), 
while others have Gadarenes {Ta^a- 
pqvwv) : either one or other of these 
readings is preferable to GcracFcuca 

(repyt(Tt)VLOl'). 



A.D. 28. 



Gadarene Demoniac Healed. 



269 



were permitted to punish the illegal cupidity of the country 
people by entering and destroying their swine. 44 The Gada- 
renes, caring more for their swine than for their souls, en- 
treated him to leave their country, and he recrossed the 
lake to Capernaum, where the people were awaiting him. 45 
The features of the country strikingly illustrate the circum- 
stances of the narrative. Gadara stood on a partially isolated 
hill at the north-western extremity of the mountains of Gil- 
ead, about sixteen miles from Tiberias, where lie the exten- 
sive and remarkable ruins of Jim Keis. It occupies the crest 
of a ridge between two wadys ; and as this crest declines in 
elevation toward the east as well as the west, the situation is 
strong and commanding. Christ came across the lake from 
Capernaum, and landed at the south-eastern corner, where 
the steep lofty bank of the eastern plateau breaks down into 
the plain of the Jordan. The demoniacs met him a short 
distance from the shore; on the side of the adjoining declivi- 
ty the " great herd of swine " were feeding ; when the demons 
went among them, the whole herd rushed down that " steep 
place " into the lake and perished ; the keepers ran up to the 
city and told the news, and the excited population came down in 
haste, and " besought Jesus that he would depart out of their 
coasts." Another thing is worthy of notice. The most inter- 
esting remains of Gadara are its tombs, which dot the cliffs 
for a considerable distance round the city. They are excava- 
ted in the limestone rock, and consist of chambers of various 
dimensions, some more than 20 feet square, with recesses in 
the sides for bodies. The present inhabitants of Um Keis 
are all troglodytes, " dwelling in tombs," like the Demoniacs 
of old ; and occasionally they are almost as dangerous to the 
unprotected traveler. 

About this time we must place Christ's second rejection at 
Nazareth, if, indeed, it was different from the first. 46 The 
great extent of this circuit, during which " he went through 
every city and village," makes it probable that the end of the 
year 28 should be placed about its termination, if not earlier, 
leaving the three months before the Passover of b.c. 29 for the 
third circuit. 

§ 10. After this, Jesus made a Third Circuit of* Galilee, as 
extensive as the former : — " He went about all the cities and 



44 St. Matthew mentions two de- 
moniacs, Mark and Luke only one. 
Le Clerc observes: "Qui pi lira nar- 
rat pauciora complectitur ; qui pau- 
ciora memorat plura non negat." 



45 Matthew viii. 28, ix. 1 ; Mark v. 
1-21; Luke viii. 26-40. 

40 Matthew xiii. 54-58 ; Mark vi 
1-6. 



270 Sequel of Christ's Galilean Ministry. Chaf. IX. 

villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gos* 
pel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every 
disease among the people." 47 Jesus was followed by multi- 
tudes that were at last beyond the reach of his single powers. 
According to the image used by an old prophet, he saw them 
scattered abroad like sheep without a shepherd, and worn out 
with their efforts to come to him, and he had compassion on 
them. What he had first told his disciples at Sychar had 
now come true on a far larger scale ; the spiritual harvest 
was too great for the laborers ; and so, after bidding them to 
pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth more laborers, he 
gives them their first commission to begin their work. 48 He 
sent them out by two and two, giving them power to cast 
out devils and heal diseases, and to preach the kingdom of 
God. They were, in fact, to be his representatives, carrying 
the Gospel to those who could not, or only with great difficul- 
ty, attend on his own ministry. He gave them a charge, 
containing much that would prepare them for their future 
ministry ; but some things suited only to their present mission, 
especially the prohibition to enter the country of the Gentiles 
or cities of the Samaritans. This restriction doubtless re- 
ferred, not only to the gradual process by which the Gospel 
was diffused, but also to the limited conceptions of the Apos- 
tles themselves, who could not yet have preached it except to 
the Jews. 49 The charge that he gave them, while containing 
much that applied specially to their present condition, em- 
braces also the great principles by which his ministers are to 
be guided in every age. Their success was an earnest to 
themselves, and an example to all their successors, of his con- 
stant presence with his servants. "They went through the 
towns preaching the Gospel and healing everywhere." " They 
cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were 
sick, and healed them." 

§11. The return of the Apostles coincided with some 
strange news, which was brought to Jesus from the court of 
Herod Antipas. We have seen how Herod had imprisoned 
John the Baptist for protesting against his unlawful marriage 
with Herodias ; and how at last, amid the revelry of a birth- 
day feast, the wanton wiles of Herodias' s daughter had obtain- 
ed the prophet's execution. And now that Herod heard 
of the miracles and success of Christ, his alarmed conscience 
imagined John risen from the dead, and he desired to see 

47 Matt. ix. 85. ! 40 Matt. x. ; Mark vi. 7-13 ; Luke 

48 Matt. ix. 36-38 ; Mark vi. G-13. I ix. 1-6. 



A.D. 29. 



First Miracle of the Loaves. 



271 



Jesus. 50 Our Lord would neither incur danger before his 
time, nor gratify the king's curiosity ; and he seems to have 
had another motive for retirement, in the elation of his dis- 
ciples at their success. So he withdrew with them by ship 
into a lonely place. But the people, who saw his departure, 
hastened on foot from all the cities round the lake ; and soon 
the multitudes not only left him and the disciples no time 
even to eat, but began to be in want of food themselves. 51 

§ 12. At this point the Gospel of John connects itself once 
more with the other three ; and we obtain from it the note of 
time which has been long wanting. " The Passover, a feast 
of the Jews, was nigh." 52 This must, in all probability, be 
reckoned as the Third Passover during our Lord's ministry; 
for, even if the " feast of the Jews," in John v., be not the 
Passover, the intervention of a second Passover is implied in 
the scene where the disciples plucked and ate the ears of corn. 
The reason given by John 53 for Christ's absence from this 
Passover is rendered the more cogent from what Ave have 
seen of Herod's state of mind ; and there seems every reason 
to believe that our Lord's presence at Jerusalem would have 
brought on that very conjuncture of Herod, Pilate, and the 
Jewish rulers, which occurred a year later, when His time was 
come. The season gives a double significance to the miracle 
by which Christ fed the people in the desert, while their 
brethren at Jerusalem were eating the unleavened bread 
of human manufacture, 54 and also to the subsequent discourse 
in which Jesus revealed himself as the true bread of life that 
had come down from heaven. 55 

That discourse forms a marked epoch in his ministry. It is 
very .affecting to observe how, the more Christ multiplied 
miracles before his Galilean followers, the further were they 
from receiving his spiritual teaching. The personal benefits 
they had now so long been in the habit of receiving came to 
be every thing to them ; and the witness which the works 
bore to Christ was only valued as exciting selfish hopes in 
them. It was to see and to profit by more miracles, that they 
ran after him round the lake ; and this last wonder of his 
feeding five thousand men, besides women and children, with 
five barley-loaves and two small fishes, leaving twelve baskets 



60 Matt, xiv. 1.2; Mark vi. 14-16. 

51 Matt. xiv. 13-15; Mark vi. 30- 
36 ; Luke ix. 10-12 : John vi. 1-5. 

52 John vi. 4. 

53 John vii. 1. " After these things 
Jesus walked in Galilee : for he would 



not walk in Jewry, because the Jews 
sought to kill him." 

54 Matt. xiv. 16-21 ; Mark vi. 37< 
44; Luke ix. 13-17; John vi. 5« 
13. 

55 John vi. 22-71 . 



272 Sequel of Christ's Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX 

of fragments to be gathered up, while it convinced them that 
he was the prophet predicted by Moses, 56 excited proud hopes 
of independence instead of humble faith in him, and they 
were ready to take him by force and make him king. 57 On 
this first mention of such a design, we may w T ell consider 
what it involved. It was no offer of a peaceful succession, 
made by a united people. With Judrea governed by a Ro- 
man procurator, and Galilee held by Herod at the pleasure of 
the emperor — with factions among the Jews themselves 
ready to support the Idunuean dynasty, and even to cry out, 
" We have no king but Caesar," — His consent would have 
been the signal for a war such as burst out under Nero. 
And here we may doubtless see one of those occasions on 
which Jesus himself was tempted, though without sin. The 
people of Galilee repeated the offer which Satan had made 
on the Mount of Temptation ; and from Satan it came this 
time also, though made through them. History furnishes its 
memorable examples, how hard such an offer is to refuse ; and 
that there was a real conflict in our Saviour's mind is proved 
by his departing alone into a mountain to pray. But first, 
while he sent away the people, the disciples, who, we may be 
quite sure, were ready to take the same part, were directed, 
not without great reluctance, to recross the lake to Bethsaida. 58 
The night fell, and Jesus watched the lonely vessel, tossed 
about by the waves and adverse wind, an emblem of the love 
and vigilance which attends his people in the voyage of life. 
As the night reached its darkest, and the storm its highest, 
they thought, doubtless almost with despair, of their rescue 
from the like peril when Jesus was with them in the ship ; 
but they had to learn that he helps when the time seems all 
but past, and the means exhausted. It was only in the fourth 
watch of the night that he came to them, walking on the 
waves; and even then he made as though he would have 
passed them; but their cry of fresh terror at the supposed 
apparition was answered by the cheering announcement of his 
presence. Then, as so often happens at an unhoped deliver- 
ance, presumption succeeded to despair ; and Peter, the repre- 
sentative of this feeling among the Apostles, was saved by 
Jesus from perishing in the waves on which he had had the 
rashness, but not the faith, to walk. How much they needed 
such lessons we learn from the statement of Mark, that, even 



56 Deut. xviii. 15. 1 58 Matt. xiv. 22, 23 ; Mark vi. 45, 

67 John vi. 14, 15. 46. " He constrained his disciples to 

1 get into the ship." 



A.D. 29. Great Defection of Disciples. 273 

while confessing Him to be the Son of God, " their heart was 
hardened " to the true meaning of the miracles of the loaves. 59 
We can not, therefore, wonder at the same error among the 
people, who sought Jesus, as he himself says, not because they 
had seen the miracles, but because they had eaten of the 
loaves. Meanwhile, as soon as Jesus was received by the 
disciples into the ship, its voyage came to an end at " the land 
of Gennesaret," the fertile plain upon the western shoref 
which gave to the lake one of its names, and in which Caper- 
naum stood. 60 From all the cities or villages of that fair re- 
gion, the wonted crowds nocked to Jesus as soon as they 
heard of his landing, bringing their sick and afflicted ; and 
numbers were healed by merely touching the border of his 
garment as he passed by. He was found at Capernaum by 
the people who had been left on the other side of the lake, 
and who had recrossed it in boats on the following day. 
Then followed the controversy, in which, notwithstanding 
what they had just seen, they required some new sign to 
match that of the manna in the wilderness. In reply, he 
teaches them the doctrine that spiritual life can only be re- 
ceived by spiritually eating his flesh and drinking his blood. 
This called forth the full hostility of the carnal mind to spirit- 
ual truth, even among his disciples. Many of them said, 
" This is & hard saying ; who can hear it ?" not so much hard 
to understand as to receive with heartfelt sympathy. And 
now he plainly told them, from his own superhuman knowl- 
edge, that there were unbelievers among them ; and many of 
his disciples finally forsook him. Then the twelve, by the 
mouth of Peter, answer his appeal, " Will ye also go away ?" 
by the solemn profession of their faith in him, as Christ, the 
Son of God, and the only teacher of eternal life ; but Jesus 
warns even them that " one of them had a devil," alluding thus 
plainly, for the first time, to the treason of Judas Iscariot. 61 
The defection of the great body of Christ's disciples, leav- 
ing only the twelve in constant attendance upon him, marks 
the last period of his Galilean ministry as a season of special 
intercourse with them, in preparation for their apostolic work. 
§ 13. Among the followers of Jesus during these transac- 
tions we have repeated mention of " the Jews," a term which, 
in the records of his controversial teachings, generally de- 
notes the leaders of the two great parties, and more especial- 

59 Matt. xiv. 23-33 ; Mark vi. 47-1 60 Matt. xiv. 34-36 ; Mark vi. 53. 
52 ; John vi. 15-21. I 56 ; John vi. 21. 

C1 John vi. 22-71. 
M 2 



274 Sequel of Christ's Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX. 

ly the Pharisees and Scribes, for the Sadducees seem as yet to 
have regarded the new teacher with scornful indifference. 
Many of these came from Jerusalem and Judaea, expressly to 
watch him; 62 and their hatred must have been inflamed 
afresh by such teaching as that just related. The words 63 of 
St. John imply that a new conspiracy against Jesus was 
formed by the rulers at this Passover, for which reason he 
remained in Galilee six months longer, till the Feast of Taber- 
nacles. Disappointed by his absence, more of the Scribes and 
Pharisees went to meet him on his own ground ; and their 
fault-finding gave him the opportunity of denouncing the vain 
traditions by which they annulled the spirit of the law, while 
adding to its burdensome obligations. 64 

But they had probably another object besides controversy, 
to stir up Herod against Jesus, who therefore withdrew for a 
time out of Herod's jurisdiction, first into the region of Tyre 
and Sidon, and afterward to the Decapolis. His stay in Phoe- 
nicia was marked by that condescension to the prayer of the 
Syro-Phcenician woman (a native of the country, but of Greek 
education, the counterpart to the woman of Sarepta in the 
time of Elijah), which was the first case of his performing a 
miracle for, and recognizing the faith of, an actual heathen ; 
for the centurion already mentioned was a proselyte. 65 Pass- 
ing round the north side of the Lake of Galilee to the Decap- 
olis, C5b Jesus healed a deaf and dumb man, with many others, 
and again repeated the miracle of feeding the multitudes that 
followed him, — 4000 men, besides women and children, — with 
seven loaves and a few small fishes, seven baskets full of frag- 
ments being taken up. 00 Crossing the lake to Magdala (or 

62 Sec Matt. xv. I ; Mark vii. 1 ; I pear to have been rebuilt, partially 
and many other passages. I colonized, and endowed with peculiar 

" John vii. 1. (privileges; the country around them 



r ' 4 Matt. xv. 1-20; Mark vii. 1-23. 

05 Matt. xv. 21-28; Mark vii. 24- 
30. St. Matthew speaks of "a wom- 
nn of Canaan " in place of St. Mark's 
" Syro- Phoenician," on the same 
ground that the Septnagint translate 
Canaan by Phoenicia. The names 
Canaan and Phoenicia had succeeded 



was hence called Decapolis. Pliny 
enumerates them as follows :- — Sey- 
thopolis, Hippos, Gadara, Pella, Phil- 
adelphia, Gerasa, Dion, Canatha, Da- 
mascus, and Raphana. All the cities 
of Decapolis, with the single excep- 
tion of Scythopolis, lay on the cast of 
the Jordan. It would appear, how- 



one another as geographical names j ever, from Matt. iv. 25, and Mark 
in the satne country. vii. 31, that Decapolis was a gener- 

e6b This name occurs only three al appellation for a large district 
times in the Scriptures, Matt. \y, 25, extending along both sides of the 
Mark v. 2p ? and vii. 31. Immedi- ■ Jordan. 

ately after the c mquest of Syria by | " 6 'Matt xv. 29-38 ; Mark vii. 37, 
the Romans (rj.p. (35) ten citjes ap- viii. 9. 



A.D. 29. 



Encounters with the Pharisees, etc. 



275 



rather Magadan), in the district of Dalmanutha, CGb he again 
encountered the Pharisees, this time in league with the Sad- 
ducees and Herodians, 67 who asked and were refused a " sign," 
some great wonder wrought expressly for them, to prove that 
he was the Christ. He answers them as he had answered a 
similar request before ; " the sign of the prophet Jonas " ° 
was all that they should have. His resurrection after a death of 
three days should be the great, sign, and yet in another sense 
no sign should be given them, for they should neither see it 
nor believe it. The unnatural alliance between Pharisee and 
Sadducee is worthy of remark. The zealots of tradition and 
the political partisans of Herod 69 joined together for once 
with a common object of hatred. After they had departed, 
Jesus crossed the lake with his disciples, and, combining per- 
haps for the use of the disciples the remembrance of the feed- 
ing of the four thousand with that of the conversation they 
hsd just heard, warned them to " beware of the leaven of the 
Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod. 70 So little however 
were the disciples prepared for this, that they mistook it for a 
reproof for having brought only one loaf with them ! They 
had forgotten the five thousand and the four thousand, or 
they would have known that where He was, natural bread 
could not fail them. It was needful to explain to them that 
the leaven of the Pharisees was the doctrine of those who 
had made the Word of God of none effect by traditions which 
appearing to promote religion really destroyed it, and the leav- 
en of the Sadducees was the doctrine of those who, under the 
show of superior enlightenment, removed the foundations of 
the fear of God by denying the future state. 71 He used the 



6Gb The name Magdala is found in 
the received Greek text and the A.V. 
of Matt. xv. 39 only ; but the chief 
MSS. and versions exhibit the name 
as Magadan. In the present text of 
the parallel narrative of St. Mark (viii. 
10) we find the "parts of Dalmanu- 
tha." though in the time of Eusebius 
and Jerome the two were in agree- 
ment, both reading Magadan, as 
Mark still does in Codex D. Dal- 
manutha was probably at or ueav Ain 
el-Barideh, about a mile below el- 
Mejdel, on the western edge of the 
lake of Gennesareth. El-Mejdel is 
doubtless the representative of an an- 
cient Migdol or Magdala, possibly 
that from which St. Mary came. Her 



native place was possibly not far dis- 
tant from the Magadan of our Lord'L, 
history, and we can only suppose that, 
owing to the familiar recurrence of 
the word Magdalene, the less known 
name was absorbed in the better, an<3 
Magdala usurped the name, and pos 
sibly also the position of Magadan. 

67 Comp. Matt. xvi. 1, with Mark 
viii. 14. 

68 Matt. xv. 39, xvi. 4 ; Mark viii. 
10-12. 

69 For "leaven of the Sadducees," 
in Matt. xvi. 6 =" leaven of Herod," 
Mark viii. 15. 

70 Mark viii. 15. 

71 Matt. xvi. 4-12 : Mark viii. la 
21. 



276 Sequel of Christ 's Galilean Ministry. CiiAr. IX 

same figure on another occasion, explaining that by " the leav* 
en of the Pharisees " he meant hypocrisy ; 7a that of the Sad- 
ducees and Herodians was an ungodly worldly policy. 

§ 14. From the eastern side of the Lake of Tiberias, Jesus went 
with his disciples up the course of the Jordan, staying at Beth- 
saida, 73 where he healed a blind man, to Csesarea Philippi, 
near the sources of the river. This city, at the very extremi- 
ty of the Holy Land, marking the northmost limit of our 
Saviour's travels, 74 was the scene of some of the most memo- 
rable events in his course ; events that were designed to pre- 
pare the disciples for the consummation now rapidly approach- 
ing. We have seen, and we might, had the plan of this work 
permitted detailed exposition, have traced much more minute- 
ly, the gradual development of the faith of the disciples in their 
Lord. Now the time was come for a full and intelligent pro- 
fession of their faith. Having first asked them about the va- 
rious opinions that the people entertained of him, some saying 
that he was John the Baptist, others that he was Elijah, and 
others that he was Jeremiah or one of the old prophets risen 
again, he makes the direct appeal to them : — " But whom say 
ye that I am ? " Without waiting to consult the rest, Peter 
answers, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
This formula was not uttered now for the first time ; but on 
no former occasion does it seem to have expressed a conviction 
so deep and spiritual. It calls forth a blessing upon Simon, 
as having spoken by the express revelation of God ; and then 
is added that great saying concerning the foundation of 
Christ's Church, which has been perverted into the corner- 
stone of the Romish faith. 75 Its true interpretation is to be 
found in the Hebrew custom of giving significant names, not 
solely, or even chiefly, to describe qualities in the persons who 
bore them, but to commemorate truths in which they were 
concerned. It is simply absurd to insist on finding in the 
words, "Thou art Peter" the necessary antecedent to "on 
this rock will I build my Church." The true connection is 
this : — " Thou art rightly called Peter," for thou hast uttered 
a confession which embodies the foundation of Christian truth, 



72 Luke xii. 1. 

73 Mark viii. 22-26. There were 
two places of this name. 1 . The na- 
tive place of Andrew, Peter, and 
Philip was on the W. side of the lake. 



in the text was N.E. of the lake. It 
was formerly a village, but rebuilt and 
adorned by Philip the Tetrarch, and 
raised to the dignity of a town under 
the name of Julias, after the daugh- 



Dr. Robinson places it at J Ain et- I ter of the emperor. (See Map, p 



Tabigah, a short distance N. of Khan 
Minyeh, which he identifies with Ca- 
pernaum. 2. The town mentioned 



240). 74 Comp. chap. v. p. 105. 

75 Matt. xvi. 13-20; Mark viii. 27' 
30; Luke ix. 18-21. 



A.D. 29. The Transfiguration of Christ 277 

the divine nature and the true Messiahship of Jesus Christ; 
and upon this rock will I build my Church. The concurrent 
testimony, both of prophecy and of the New Testament, points 
to Christ himself as the Rock, and the only foundation of his 
Church ; 76 and surely it must be his strength, and not Peter's, 
which forms a basis too steadfast for the powers of destruction 
(" the gates of Hades ") to prevail against ! But still, in a 
secondary sense, the Apostles are spoken of, together with 
the Prophets, as the foundation on which the Church is built, 
but in subordination to " Jesus Christ, the chief corner-stone ; " 77 
and in this sense Peter himself was one of the first stones of 
the edifice, of which he himself calls all believers "living 
stones." 78 His position in the Church is then illustrated by 
another figure, which has been equally perverted ; as if the 
servant who has charge of the keys of a house were almost on 
a level with the master himself. The event furnished the sim- 
ple and natural interpretation, when, on the day of Pentecost, 
Peter was the first to admit a multitude of the believing Jews, 
and afterward, in the house of Cornelius, a number of Gen- 
tile proselytes, into the Christian Church. He did both as 
the organ of the other Apostles, who shared his action in the 
first case, and confirmed it in the second ; for to them Christ 
afterward gave the same privilege that he now gave to Peter. 
The only distinction between him and the other Apostles is a 
priority in time, corresponding to the priority of his confes- 
sion of Christ. As to the power of " binding and loosing," 
which is more fully expressed after our Saviour's resurrection 
as the retention and remission of sins, its signification is a 
question too purely theological to be discussed here. 

And now, after commanding his disciples not yet to divulge 
the great truth they had confessed, he reveals to them the 
greater mystery of his death and resurrection ; but so little, 
even yet, were they prepared for such an issue of his course, 
that Peter, the very apostle who had just been foremost in 
the confession of Christ, now took upon himself to remonstrate 
and protest, " Be it far from thee, Lord : this shall not be 
unto thee !" In these words Jesus sees another assault of 
Satan, using Peter's prejudices as a temptation to renounce 
His great work, and He rebukes him with the same stern au- 
thority as in their former conflict, " Get thee behind me, 
Satan !" Then, turning to his disciples, he warns them that 
they must all pass through the same temptation, and make 



,6 Acts iv. 11, 12; 1 Cor. iii. 11. " Eph. ii. 20; Eev. xxi. 14. 

7b 1 Peter ii. 5. 



,278 



Sequel of Christ's Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX. 



the same choice between the world and himself, a choice on 
which depended the salvation or loss of their own souls. 
They must decide to suffer with him upon earth, if they 
would reign with him hereafter. For he would surely come 
in the glory of God and with the holy angels, to reward every 
man according to his works, and then he would be ashamed 
of those who were now ashamed of him. Nay ! so certain 
was all this, and to them of such supreme moment, that some 
<of them would in that day taste of eternal death ; another of 
the allusions which we have already seen our Saviour make 
to the character of Judas. 79 

§ 15. Having thus received a foretaste of "the sufferings oi 
Christ," the minds of the disciples were soon relieved by a 
glimpse of " the glory that should follow." Just a week after 
the above discourse, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and 
John, the three disciples who were also to be the witnesses of 
his agony at Gethsemane, to behold a vision of his heavenly 
glory. The scene is traditionally identified with Mount Tabor, 
but this can not have been the place : all we can infer from 
the Gospel narrative is, that it was a high mountain near to 
Caasarea Philippi. 80 His first object was prayer ; and as he 
prayed, his face and raiment were transfigured to the same 
glorious majesty and brilliant whiteness in which he appeared 
to John long afterward at Patmos. With him were seen in 
glory Moses and Elijah, the lawgiver and reformer of the Old 
Covenant ; and their converse with him concerning " his de- 
cease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem " showed to 
the disciples the harmony of the Law and the Prophets with 
the Gospel in regarding Christ's sufferings as the prelude to 
his glory ; and that that glory would be shared by his follow- 
ers, was intimated by the glory in which Moses and Elijah 
themselves appeared. Nor was there wanting a sensible proof 
of the presence of God the Father ; but instead of the " black- 
ness, and darkness, and tempest," amid which God had revealed 
himself both to Moses and Elijah upon Mount Sinai, it was a 
bright cloud out of which a voice came, saying, " This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." The 
disciples, who had given way, while the Master was praying, 
to a supernatural drowsiness like that which overcame them at 
Gethsemane, awoke just in time for Peter to express the fond 
desire to remain amid such bliss, when the voice was heard 



79 Matt. xvi. 21-28 ; Murk viii. 31, 
ix. 1 ; Luke ix. 22-27. Sec Bp. 
Horsley's 4th Sermon. 



80 Possibly one of th" lower sum- 
mits of Hermon itself. See Notes 
and Illustrations (C>. 



A.D. 29. Final Departure from Galilee. 279 

from the cloud, the vision vanished, and they were left alone 
with Jesus. As they came down from the mountain, he charged 
them not to tell what they had seen, till after his resurrec- 
tion ; and he explained, in reply to their inquiries about the 
coming of Elijah before the Messiah, that Elijah had already 
come in the person of John the Baptist, and had been persecu- 
ted by those very scribes who had taught men to expect him, 
and so the Son of Man Avould also suffer. 81 

The three disciples descended with Jesus to the world be- 
neath, in a double sense ; for a most humiliating scene was en- 
acting in their absence. The remaining Apostles had attempt- 
ed to heal a frightful case of demoniacal possession; and 
their failure had subjected them to the scornful objections of 
the scribes, and the unbelief of the people. After rebuking 
that unbelief, and bringing the father of the sufferer, who 
had expressed it, to cry with tears, " Lord, I believe : help 
thou my unbelief," Jesus cast out the furious demon; and 
then told his disciples, in private, the secret of their failure, 
because of their unbelief, and the unbounded power of faith : 
"This kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting." 62 
Once more, soon after this, Jesus foretold to the disciples his 
betrayal and death, and his resurrection the third day after ; 
but they were unwilling to accept the plain meaning of his 
words, and afraid to ask him for an explanation. 83 

§ 16. Jesus now returned with the Twelve, for the last time, 
to the shores of the Lake of Galilee. 84 At Capernaum he re- 
leased Peter by a miracle from his difficulty about the tribute- 
money, the "didrachm," which corresponds in value to the 
half-shekel, and seems therefore to have been the poll-tax of 
that amount, which was paid for the temple-service. The 
piece of money, a " stater," which Peter found in the fish's 
mouth, was equal to a shekel, and therefore the precise amount 
of the tax for his Master and himself. The exemption whicli 
Jesus claimed, though he waived it lest he should offend the 
Jews, may be regarded as an assertion of his divinity. 85 

From the great lessons they had so lately received, the 
Apostles seem as yet to have derived only a vague idea that 
their Master's kingdom was at hand, and that they must not lose 
its advantages to themselves. The contest which arose among 
them for precedence gave an occasion for our Saviour's teach- 



81 Matt. xvii. 1-13; Mark ix. 2-13 ; 
Luke ix. 28-3G. 

82 Matt. xvii. 14-21 ; Mark ix. 14- 
29; Luke ix. 37-43. 



84 Matt. Mark, 11. cc. 

85 Matt. xvii. 24-27. See the Ajv 
}>endix to the Old Testament History, 
on Weights, Measures, and Money. 



Matt. xvii. 22, 23 ; Mark ix. 30-32 : Luke ix. 43-45 



280 Sequel of Christ's Galilean Ministry. Chap. IX. 

ing, by the pattern of a little child whom he set in the midst 
of them, the great lessons of humility, brotherly love, forgive- 
ness and forbearance ; to which he added that of reverent re- 
gard for children, just because they hold out to us an example 
of the state of innocence from which we have fallen, and 
which niugt be regained, by repentance and conversion, before 
we can enter the kingdom of heaven. And thus the last les- 
son which our Lord taught in Galilee re-echoes the first with 
which he opened the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, the 
whole discourse, which is reported most fully by St. Matthew, 
forms a most impressive climax to the teaching which was so 
begun. Christ's own example, in coming to seek and save 
the lost, is held forth as the great motive to compassionate 
love and mutual forgiveness. The power of binding and 
loosing is now extended to all the Apostles ; his presence is 
promised in all their assemblies ; and his Father's answer to 
all their prayers. Once more the solemn warning is repeated, 
concerning resistance to sin, and decision between the Master 
and the world; and the note of future judgment, already 
struck in the Sermon on the Mount, concludes the whole ; but 
for the gentle final words recorded by St. Mark : — " Have 
peace one with another." 80 

Immediately after this the first two Evangelists mention the 
final departure of Jesus from Galilee into that part of Peraea 
which belonged to the province of Judaea. 87 But, in fact, the 
interval between the departure from Galilee, and the retire- 
ment into Peraga, 88 is to be filled up by Christ's visit to the 
Feast of Tabernacles, and many other important incidents 
which are related by Luke and John. The narrative of these 
events belongs to the next chapter. 

86 Matt, xviii. ; Mark ix. 33-50 ; I 87 Matt. xix. 1 ; Mark x 1. 

Luke ix. 46-50. ] m John x 44. 



Chap. IX. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



281 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



(A.) THE BRETHREN OF THE 
LORD. 

The difficult question as to who 
were ''the brethren of the Lord " has 
given rise to much controversy. They 
are first mentioned in Matt. xiii. 55 : 
"Is not this the carpenter's son? is 
not his mother called Mary ? and his 
brethren, James and Joses, and Judas, 
and Simon ? and his sisters, are they 
not all with us?" The natural con- 
clusion would seem to be that Jesus 
had four brothers of the above names, 
as well as sisters. But by comparing 
Matt, xxvii. 56, and Mark xv. 40, 
with John xix. 25, we find that the 
Virgin Mary had a sister named like 
herself, Mary, who was the wife of 
Clopas, and who had two sons, James 
the Little, and Joses. By referring 
to Matt. xiii. 55, and Mark vi. 3, 
we find that a James and a Joses, 
with two other brethren called Jude 
and Simon, and at least three sisters, 
were living with the Virgin Mary at 
Nazareth. By referring to Luke vi. 
16, and Acts i. 13, we find that there 
were two brethren named James and 
Jude among the Apostles. It would 
certainly be natural to think that we 
had here but one family of four broth- 
ers and three or more sisters, the chil- 
dren of Clopas and Mary, nephews 
and nieces of the Virgin Mary. There 
are difficulties, however, in the way 
of this conclusion. For, 1, the four 
brethren in Matt. xiii. 55 are de- 
scribed as the brothers (adeXcpol) of 
/esus, not as his cousins ; 2, they are 



found living as at their home with the 
Virgin Mary, which seems unnatural 
if she were their aunt, their mother 
being, as we know, still alive ; 3, the 
James of Luke vi. 15 is described as 
the son not of Clopas, but of Alphasus ; 
4, the "brethren of the Lord" (who 
are plainly James, Joses, Jude, and 
Simon) appear to be excluded from 
the Apostolic band by their declared 
unbelief in his Messiahship (John 
vii. 3-5), and by being formally dis- 
tinguished from the disciples by the 
Gospel-writers (Matt. xii. 48; Mark 
iii. 33; John ii. 12; Acts i. 14); 5, 
James and Jude are not designated 
as the Lord's brethren in the list of 
the Apostles ; 6, Mary is designated 
as mother of James and Joses, where- 
as she would have been called mother 
of James and Jude, had James and 
Jude been Apostles, and Joses not an 
Apostle (Matt, xxvii. 46). 

These are the six chief objections 
which may be made to the hypothesis 
of there being but one family of breth- 
ren named James, Joses, Jude and 
Simon. The following answers may 
be given : 

Objection 1. — "They are called 
brethren^ But there can be no doubt 
that ddeX^oi frequently signifies not 
"brothers," but cousins or other near 
relations ; and the translation of the 
word by "brothers" in Matt. xiii. 55 
would produce very grave difficulties. 
For, first, it introduces two sets of four 
first cousins, bearing the same names 
of James, Joses, Jude and Simon, who 
appear upon the stage without any 



282 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. IX, 



thing to show which is the son of Clo- 
pas, and which his cousin ; and sec- 
ondly, it drives us to take our choice 
between three doubtful and improba- 
ble hypotheses as to the parentage of 
this second set of James, Joses, Jude, 
and Simon. There are three such 
hypotheses: — (a.) The Eastern hy- 
pothesis, that they were the children 
of Joseph by a former Avife. (b.) The 
Helvidian hypothesis, that James, 
Joses, Jude, Simon, and the three 
sisters, were children of Joseph and 
Mary. This hypothesis also creates 
two sets of cousins with the same 
names, and it seems to be scarcely 
compatible with our Lord's recom- 
mending his mother to the care of St. 
John at his own death ; for if, as has 
been suggested, though with great im- 
probability, her sons might at that 
time have been unbelievers, Jesus 
would have known that that unbelief 
was only to continue for a few days. 
(c.) The Levirate hypothesis may be 
passed by. It was a mere attempt 
made in the eleventh century to rec- 
oncile the Greek and Latin traditions 
by supposing that Joseph and Clopas 
were brothers, and that Joseph raised 
up seed to his dead brother. 

Objection 2. — "The four brothers 
and their sisters are always found liv- 
ing and moving about with the Virgin 
Mary." If they were the children of 
Clopas, the Virgin Mary was their 
aunt. Her own husband would ap- 
pear without doubt to have died at 
some time between a.d. 8 and a.d. 26. 
Nor have we any reason for believing 
Clopas to have been alive during our 
Lord's ministry. What difficulty is 
there in supposing that the two wid- 
owed sisters should have lived togeth- 
er, the more so as one of them had 
but one son, and he was often taken 
from her by his ministerial duties ? 
And would it not be most natural that 
two families of first cousins thus living 
together should be popularly looked 



upon as one family, and spoken of as 
brothers and sisters instead of cousins ? 
It is noticeable that St. Mary is no- 
where called the mother of the four 
brothers. 

Objection 3. — "James the Apostle 
is said to be the son of Alphseus, not 
of Clopas." But Alphasus and Ctopas 
are the same name rendered into the 
Greek language in two different but 
ordinary and recognized ways, from 
the Aramaic word. (Compare the two 
forms Clovis and Aloysius.) 

Objection 4. — Dean Alford con- 
siders John vii. 5, compared with vi. 
G7-70, to decide that none of the 
brothers of the Lord were of the num- 
ber of the Twelve. If this verse, as 
he states, makes the "crowning diffi- 
culty " to the hypothesis of the iden- 
tity of James the son of Alphseus, the 
Apostle, with James the brother of 
the Lord, the difficulties are not too 
formidable to be overcome. Many 
of the disciples having left Jesus, St. 
Peter bursts out in the name of the 
Twelve with a warm expression of 
faith and love ; and after that — very 
likely (see Gres well's Harmony} full 
six months afterward — the Evangelist 
states that "neither did His brethren 
believe on Him." Does it follow from 
hence that all his brethren disbe- 
lieved ? Let us compare other pas- 
sages in Scripture. St. Matthew and 
St. Mark state that the thieves railed 
on our Lord upon the Cross. Are 
we therefore to disbelieve St. Luke, 
who says that one of the thieves was 
penitent, and did not rail ? (Luke 
xxiii. 39, 40.) St. Luke and St. John 
say that the soldiers offered vinegar. 
Are we to believe that all did so ? or, 
as St. Matthew and St. Mark tell us, 
that only one did it ? (Luke xxiii. 36 ; 
John xix. 29; Mark xv. 36; Matt, 
xxvii. 48.) St. Matthew tells us that 
" his disciples " had indignation, when 
Mary poured the ointment on the 
Lord's head. Are we to suppose this 



Chap. IX. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



283 



true of all ? or of Judas Iscariot, and j in it, if Joses was, as would seem like* 
perhaps some others, according to ly, an elder brother of Jude, and next 
John xii. 4, and Mark xiv. 4 ? It is ; in order to James, 
not at all necessary to suppose that 



St. John is here speaking of all the 
brethren. If Joses, Simon, and the 
three sisters disbelieved, it would be 
quite sufficient ground for the state 



(BO 



THE PARABLES OE 
CHRIST. 



The word Parable (jrapa^qkif) does 



ment of the Evangelist. The same | not of itself imply a narrative. The 
may be said of Matt. xii. 47, Mark j juxtaposition of two things, differing 
iii, 32, where it is reported to Him i in most points, but agreeing in some, 
that his mother and his brethren, i is sufficient to bring the comparison 
designated by St. Mark (iii. 21) as .thus produced within the etymology 
o'l 7rap cwtov, were standing without. ! of the word. In Hellenistic Greek 



Nor does it necessarily follow that the 
disbelief of the brethren was of such 
a nature that James and Jude, Apos- 
tles though they were, and vouched 
for half a year before by the warm- 



the word acquiied a meaning co- 
extensive with that of the Hebrew 
jndshdl, for which the LXX. writers, 
with hardly an exception, make it the 
equivalent. That word ( = similitude) 



tempered Peter, could have had no j had a large range of application, and 
share in it. It might have been simi- j was applied sometimes to the shortest 
lar to that feeling of unfaithful rest- j proverbs (1 Sam. x. 12, xxiv. 13; 2 
lessness which perhaps moved St. i Chr. vii. 20), sometimes to dark pro- 
John Baptist to send his disciples to'phetic utterances (Num. xxiii. 7, 18, 
make their inquiry of the Lord (see 'xxiv. 3; Ez. xx. 49), sometimes to 
Grotius in loc, and Lardner, vi. p. enigmatic maxims (Ps. Ixxviii. 2; 
497. Lond. 1788). With regard to j Prov. i. 6), or metaphors expanded 
John ii. 12, Acts i. 14, we may say into a narrative (Ez. xii. 22). In 
that "his brethren" are no more ex- j Ecclesiasticus the word occurs with a 
eluded from the disciples in the first ' striking frequency, and, as will be 
passage, and from the Apostles in the I seen hereafter, its use by the Son of 



second, by being mentioned parallel 
with them, than "the other Apostles, 
and the brethren of the Lord, and 
Cephas" (1 Cor. ix. 5), excludes Pe-j 
ter from the Apostolic band. 



Sirach throws light on the position 
occupied by parables in our Lord's 
teaching. In the N. T. itself the word 
is used with a like latitude. While 
attached most frequently to the illus- 



Objection 5. — " If the title of breth- j trations which have given it a special 
ren of the Lord had belonged to j meaning, it is also applied to a short 
James and Jude, they would have j saying, like "Physician, heal thyself " 
been designated by it in the list of the \ (Luke iv. 23), to a mere comparison 
Apostles." The omission of a title is without a narrative (Matt. xxiv. 32), 



so slight a ground for an argument 
that we may pass this by. 



to the figurative character of the Le- 
vitical ordinances (Heb. ix. 9), or of 



Objection 6. — That Mary the wife single facts in patriarchal history 
of Clopas should be designated by the ! (Heb. xi. 19). 



title of Mary the mother of James and 
Joses, to the exclusion of Jude, if 
James and Jude were Apostles, ap- 



To understand the relation of the 
parables of the Gospels to our Lord's 
teaching, we must go back to the use 



pears to Dean Alford extremely im- made of them by previous or contem- 
probable. There is no improbability \ porary teachers. We have sufficient 



284 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. IX, 



evidence that they were frequently 
employed by them. They appear fre- 
quently in the Gemara and Midrash, 
and are ascribed to Hiilel, Shammai, 
and other great Rabbis of tbe two 
preceding centuries. Later Jewish 
writers have seen in tins employment 
of parables a condescension to the ig- 
norance of the great mass of mankind, 
who can not be taught otherwise. 
For them, as for women or children, 
parables are the natural and fit meth- 
od of instruction. It may be ques- 
tioned, however, whether this repre- 
sents the use made of them by the 
Rabbis of our Lord's time. The lan- 
guage of the Son of Sirach confines 
them to the scribe who devotes him- 
self to study. They are at once his 
glory and his reward (Ecclus. xxxix. 
2, 3). The parable was made the in- 
strument for teaching the young dis- 
ciple to discern the treasures of wis- 
dom of which the "accursed" mul- 
titude were ignorant. The teaching 
of our Lord at the commencement of 
his ministry was, in every way, the 
opposite of this. The Sermon on the 
Mount may be taken as the type of 
the "words of grace" which he spake, 
" not as the scribes." So for some 
months he taught in the synagogues 
and on the sea-shore of Galilee, as he 
had before taught in Jerusalem, and 
as yet without a parable. But then 
there comes a change. The direct 
teaching was met with scorn, unbelief, 
hardness, and he seems for a time to 
abandon it for that which took the 
form of parables. The question of 
the disciples (Matt. xiii. 10) implies 
that they were astonished. Their 
Master was no longer proclaiming the 
Gospel of the kingdom as before. He 
was falling back into one at least of 
the forms of Rabbinic teaching. He 
was speaking to the multitude in the 
parables and dark sayings which the 
Rabbis reserved for their chosen dis- 
ciples. Here, for them, were two 



grounds of wonder. Here, for us, is 
the key to the explanation which he 
gave, that he had chosen this form 
of teaching because the people were 
spiritually blind and deaf (Matt. xiii. 
13), and in order that they might re- 
main so (Mark iv. 12). Upon this 
we may observe that all experience 
shows (1) that parables do attract, 
and, when once understood, are sure 
to be remembered ; (2) that men may 
listen to them and see that they have 
a meaning, and yet never care to ask 
what that meaning is. Their worth, 
as instruments of teaching, lies in 
their being at once a test of character, 
and in their presenting each form of 
character with that which, as a pen- 
alty or blessing, is adapted to it. They 
withdraw the light from those who 
love darkness. They protect the truth 
which they enshrine from the mockery 
of the scoffer. They leave something 
even with the careless which may be 
interpreted and understood afterward. 
They reveal, on the other hand, the 
seekers after truth. These ask the 
meaning of the parable, will not rest 
till the teacher has explained it, are 
led step by step to the laws of inter- 
pretation, so that they can "under- 
stand all parables," and then pass on 
into the higher region in which para- 
bles are no longer necessary, but all 
things are spoken plainly. In this 
way the parable did its work, found 
out the fit hearers and led them on. 

From the time indicated by Matt, 
xiii., accordingly, parables enter 
largely into our Lord's recorded teach- 
ing. Each parable of those which 
we read in the Gospels may have 
been repeated more than once with 
greater or less variation (as e.g. those 
of the Pounds and the Talents, Matt. 
xxv. 14; Lukexix. 12: of the Supper, 
in Matt. xxii. 2, and Luke xiv. 16). 
Every thing leads us to believe that 
there were many others of which wc 
have no record (Matt. xiii. 34 ; Mark 



Chap. IX. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



285 



iv. 33). In those which remain it is 
possible to trace something like an 
order.* 

(A.) There is the group with which 
the new mode of teaching is ushered 
in, and which have for their subject 
the laws of the Divine Kingdom, in 
its growth, its nature, its consumma- 
tion. Under this head we have — 

1. The Sower (Matt. xiii. ; Mark iv. ; 

Luke viii.). 

2. The Wheat and the Tares (Matt. xiii.). 
■5. The Mustard Seed (Matt. xiii. : Mark 

iv.). 

4. The Seed cast into the Ground (Mark 

iv.). 

5. The Leaven (Matt. xiii.). 

C. The Hid Treasure (Matt. xiii.). 

7. The Pearl of Great Price (Matt. xiii.). 

8. The Net cast into the Se i (Matt. xiii.). 

(B.) After this there is an interval 
of some months, of which we know 
comparatively little. Either there was 
a return to the more direct teaching, 
or else these were repeated, or others 
like them spoken. When the next 
parables meet us, they are of a differ- 
ent type and occupy a different po- 
sition. They occur chiefly in the in- 
terval between the mission of the 
Seventy and the last approach to Je- 
rusalem. They are drawn from the 
life of men rather than from the world 
of nature. Often they occur, not, as 
in Matt, xiii., in discourses to the 
multitude, but in answers to the ques- 
tions of the disciples or other inquirers. 
They are such as these — 

9. The Two Debtors (Luke vii.). 

10. The Merciless Servant (Matt, xviii.). 

11. The Good Samaritan (Lukex.). 

12. The Friend at Midnight (Luke xi.). 

13. The Rich Fool (Luke xii.). 

14. The Wedding-Feast (Luke xii.). 

15. The Fig-Tree (Luke xiii.). 



*The number of parables in the Gospels 
will of course depend on the range given to 
the application of the name. Thus Mr. 
Greswell reckons twenty-seven ; Archbishop 
Trench, thirty. By others, the number has 
been extended te fifty. 



16. The Great Supper (Luke xiv.). 

17. The Lost Sheep (Matt, xviii. ; Luke 

xv.). 
IS. The Lost Piece of Money (Luke xv.). 

19. The Prodigal Son (Luke xv.). 

20. The Unjust Steward (Luke xvi.). 

21. The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 

xvi.). 

22. The Unjust Judge (Luke xviii.). 

23. The Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 

xviii.). 

24. The Laborers in the Vineyard (Matt. 

xx.). 

(C.) Toward the close of our Lord's 
ministry, immediately before and after 
the entry into Jerusalem, the parables 
assume a new character. They are 
again theocratic, but the phase of the 
Divine Kingdom, on which they chief- 
ly dwell, is that of its final consumma- 
tion. They arc prophetic, in part, of 
the rejection of Israel, in part of the 
great retribution of the coming of the 
Lord. They are to the earlier para- 
bles what the prophecy of Matt. xxiv. 
is to the Sermon on the Mount. To 
this class we may refer — 

f5. The Pounds (Luke xix.). 
TG. The Two Sons (Matt, xxi.). 

27. The Vineyard let out to Husbandmen 

(Matt. xxi. ; Mark xii. ; Luke xx.). 

28. The Marriage-Feast (Matt. xxii.). 

29. Th s Wise and Foolish Virgins (Matt. 

xxv.). 
SO. The Talents (Matt, xxv.). 
31. The Sheep and the Goats (Matt, xxv.). 

It is characteristic of the several 
Gospels that the greater part of the 
parables of the first and third groups 
belong to St. Matthew, emphatically 
the Evangelist of the kingdom. Those 
of the second are found for the most 
part in St. Luke. They are such as 
we might expect to meet with in the 
Gospel which dwells most on the sym- 
pathy of Christ for all men. St. 
Mark, as giving vivid recollections of 
the acts rather than the teaching of 
Christ, is the scantiest of the three 
synoptic Gospels. It is not less char- 
acteristic that there are no parables 
properly so called in St. John. It is 



286 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. IX. 



as if he, sooner than any other, had 
passed into the higher stage of knowl- 
edge, in which parables were no long- 
er necessary, and therefore dwelt less 
on them. That which his spirit ap- 
propriated most readily were the 
words of eternal life, figurative it 
might be in form, abounding in bold 
analogies, but not in any single in- 
stance taking the form of a narrative. 
Lastly, there is the law of interpre- 
tation. It has been urged by some 
writeis, that there is a scope or pur- 
pose for each parable, and that our 
aim must be to discern this, not to 
find a special significance in each cir- 
cumstance or incident. The rest, it 
is said, may be dealt with as the dra- 
pery which the parable needs for its 
grace and completeness, but which is 
not essential. It may be questioned, 
however, whether this canon of inter- 
pretation is likely to lead us to the 
full meaning of this portion of our 
Lord's teaching. True as it doubt- 
less is, that there was in each parable 
a leading thought, to be learned 
partly from the parable itself, partly 
from the occasion of its utterance, 
and that all else gathers round that 
thought as a centre, it must be re- 
membered that in the great patterns 
of interpretation which He himself 
has given us, there is more than this. 
Not only the sower and the seed and 
the several soils have their counter- 
parts in the spiritual life, but the 
birds of the air, the thorns, the scorch- 
ing heat, have each of them a signifi- 
cance. The explanation of the wheat 
and the tares, given with less fullness 
(an outline as it were, which the ad- 
vancing scholars would be able to fill 
up), is equally specific. It may be 
inferred from these two instances that 
we are at least justified in looking 
for a meaning even in the seeming 
accessories of a parable. The very 
form of the teaching makes it proba- 
ble that there may be, in any case, 



more than one legitimate explanation. 
The outward fact in nature, or in so- 
cial life, may correspond to spiritual 
facts at once in God's government of 
the world, and in the history of the 
individual soul. A parable may be 
at once ethical, and in the highest 
sense of the term prophetic. There 
is thus a wide field open to the dis- 
cernment of the interpreter. There 
are also restraints upon the mere fer- 
tility of his imagination. (1) The 
analogies must be real, not arbitrary. 
(2) The parables are to be considered 
as parts of a whole, and the interpre- 
tation of one is not to override or 
encroach upon the lessons taught by 
others. (3) The direct teaching of 
Christ presents the standard to which 
all our interpretations are to be refer- 
red, and by which they are to be meas- 
ured. (Trench on the Parables, Intro- 
ductory Remarks.) 



(C.) THE SCENE OF THE 
TRANSFIGURATION. 

The Transfiguration is usually 
placed on Mount Tabor, which is one 
of the most interesting and remark- 
able of the single mountains of Pales- 
tine. It rises abruptly from the north- 
eastern arm of the Plain of Esdraelon, 
and stands entirely insulated, except 
on the west, where a narrow ridge 
connects it with the hills of Nazareth. 
It presents to the eye, as seen from a 
distance, a beautiful appearance, be- 
ing so symmetrical in its proportions, 
and rounded off like a hemisphere or 
the segment of a circle. If one might 
choose a place which might be deemed 
peculiarly fitting for the Transfigura- 
tion, there is none certainly which 
would so entirely satisfy our feelings 
in this respect as the lofty, majestic, 
beautiful Tabor. It is impossible, 
however, to acquiesce in the correct- 
ness of this opinion. It is susceptible 
of proof from the Old Testament, and 



Chap. IX. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



28' 



from later history, that a fortress or 
town existed on Tabor from very 
early times down to B.C. 50 or 53 ; 
and, as Josephus says {Bell. Jud. iv. 1 , 
§ 8) that he strengthened the fortifi- 
cations of a city there, about a.d. 60, 
it is morally certain that Tabor must 
have been inhabited during the inter- 
vening period, that is, in the days of 
Christ. Tabor, therefore, could not 
have been the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion ; for when it is said that Jesus 
took his disciples "up into a high 
mountain apart and was transfigured 
before them" (Matt. xvii. 1, 2), we 
must understand that he brought 
them to the summit of the mountain, 
where they were alone by themselves. 
It is impossible to ascertain with cer- 
tainty what place is entitled to the 
glory of this marvelous scene. The 



Evangelists record the event in con- 
nection with a journey of the Saviour 
to Csesarea Philippi, near the sources 
of the Jordan. It is conjectured that 
the Transfiguration may have taken 
place on one of the summits of Mount 
Hermon in that vicinity. "It is im- 
possible," says Dean Stanley, "to 
look up from the plain to the tower- 
ing peaks of Hermon, almost the only 
mountain which deserves the name in 
Palestine, and not be struck with the 
appropriateness to the scene. . . . 
High up on its southern slopes there 
must be many a point where the dis- 
ciples could be taken ' apart by them- 
selves.' Even the transient compari- 
son of the celestial splendor with the 
snow, where alone it could be seen in 
Palestine, should not, perhaps, be 
wholly overlooked. "— S. & P., p. 392c 




Bethany. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE LAST SIX MONTHS OF CHRIST^ MLNTSTEY. EEOM THE 
FEAST OF TABERNACLES, A.D. 29, TO HIS FOURTH PASSOVER, 
A.D. 30. 



Approach of the Feast of Tabernacles — Jesus challenged by his brethren 
to show himself — His journey through Samaria, and rejection thei-e — 
Commission of the Seventy Disciples. § 2. Expectation concerning 
Jesus — He appears in the Temple — Last day of the Eeast — Christ the 
Living Water — The attempt to arrest him fails — Nicodemus in the 
Council — The Woman taken in Adultery — Controversy with the Phar- 
isees — The witness to Christ — Attempt, to stone him. § 3. The Man 
born blind restored to sight — Christ the Light of the World — Chai-ac- 
ter of the Miracle — The Man before the Council — His excommunica- 
tion — The Pharisees blind in sin— Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd. 
§ 4. Jesus at the Feast of the Dedication — The Jews attempt to stono 
him, and he retires to Bethabara — The interval here filled up by St. 
Luke. § 5. The Family at Bethany — The Raising of Lazarus. § 6. 
A Council held concerning Jesus — The Prophecy of Caiaphas — Christ's 
death resolved on — He retires to Ephraim. § 7. His return toward 
Jerusalem — Denunciation of Herod — Lamentation for Jerusalem. § 8. 
Events and discourses in the progress through Peraea. § 9. He re- 
CTOSses the Jordan to Jericho — Heals the two blind men — Conversion of 



A..D. 29 Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles. 289 

Zacchseus — Christ arrives finally at Bethany six days before the Pass- 
over, and spends the Sabbath there. 

§ 1. Our Lord's ministry in Galilee had lasted probably for 
a year and a half, without a visit to Jerusalem, when the ap~ 
proach of the Feast of Tabernacles called for a decision 
whether he would go up to it. 1 The tone of his recent dis- 
courses proved that his work in Galilee was done. The hol- 
low, selfish, and worldly motives of the great bulk of his fol- 
lowers had been exposed, and his few sincere disciples had re- 
ceived some training for their work, and had been taught to 
expect the issue of his course. It only remained to give the 
Jews at Jerusalem one more opportunity for repentance and 
faith, and then the time would come for him to be offered. 
The general expectation, with which at this juncture his 
course was watched, shows itself in the challenge of his 
brethren, who were as yet not full believers in him, to put his 
claims to a more open proof by showing himself in Judaea. 
But, with the answer that his time was not yet come, he bade 
them go up to the feast without him, while he remained in 
Galilee for some days, and then went up " as it were in se- 
cret," 2 

This secrecy seems to refer to his traveling by way of Sa- 
maria, instead of by the more frequented route through Pe- 
raea, which, though longer, was usually taken by the Jews of 
Judeea and Galilee, to avoid intercourse with the Samaritans. 
The choice of this route, and the previous delay, may have 
been intended to disconcert some plan for seizing him on the 
journey ; as we afterward find that his sudden appearance in 
the midst of the feast made his arrest impracticable. It also 
gave one more day of grace to the Samaritans ; but for the 
most part in vain, as we see in the case of the first villages, 
to which Christ sent forward messengers, but the people 
would not receive him, as he was on his way to Jerusalem. 
The sons of Zebedee, who would have called down fire from 
heaven, as Elijah did, to punish the insult, were checked by 
the rebuke : — " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. 
For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to 
save them." 3 To various persons who met him, offering to be- 
come his disciples, but pleading some excuse for delay, he 
taught the necessity of leaving all, to follow him.* During 
his progress through Samaria, he sent forth seventy disciples, 
two and two, to go before him, preaching the Gospel in every 

1 John vii. 2. 2 John vii. 2-10. 3 Luke ix. 51-56. 4 Luke ix 57 62. 
N 



290 Last Six Months of Christ } s Ministry. Chap. X 

place that he designed to visit. This differed in several points 
from the previous commission of the Apostles. The number 
of the Seventy, and the scene of their mission, Samaria, alike 
indicated that the time was at hand for preaching the Gospel 
to the heathen; whereas the number of the Apostles corre- 
sponded to the twelve tribes of Israel, to whom their commis- 
sion also restricted them ; nor had the Seventy received the 
special training of the Twelve. Some have also seen a sig- 
nificance in the sending forth of the Twelve at the season of 
the Passover, the beginning of the harvest, and of the Seventy 
at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, the end of all the 
labors of the year. In other respects, their instructions were 
the same ; and they may be regarded as, in spirit, those which 
should ever guide Christ's ministers. Few in comparison to 
the spiritual harvest, they were bidden to go forth praying 
the Lord of the harvest to send more laborers ; exposed to 
the malice of men, like lambs among wolves, they were to pre- 
serve their meekness, and to rely on His protection who had 
sent them. They must neither make provision for the jour- 
ney nor stay to exchange salutations by the way ; 5 but on en- 
tering any house, they were to pronounce Peace upon it, and 
peace should abide there if they were worthily received, or re- 
turn to them if they were rejected. In the same house they 
were to remain, eating and drinking what was set before them, 
"for" — said Christ, laying down the principle afterward so 
fully developed by St. Paul — " the laborer is worth his 
wages." They were to deal in like manner with the cities 
they visited; remaining in those that received them, but, 
where they were rejected, wiping off the very dust from their 
feet as a witness against the city. This sentence gives occa- 
sion to Jesus to repeat the doom of Woe ! upon the favored 
cities of Galilee, on which he had now finally turned his back — 
Chorazin, Bethsaida, and especially Capernaum. He concludes 
with the assurance that the reception, whether of obedience 
or contempt, given to them would be regarded as given to 
himself.' 

§ 2. Meanwhile his movements and character were the great 
subject of discussion at Jerusalem. While all were asking, 
u Where is he ? " some said " He is a good man ; " others, 
" Nay, but he deceiveth the people." But all spoke privately, 
lor fear of the rulers. It was about the middle of the feast 



Comp. 2 Kings iv. 29. 
Coinp. Acts xiii. 51. 



7 Luke x. 1-16. Some place here 
the Healing of the Ten Lepers, Luko 
xvii. 11-19. 



A.D. 29 Controversy with the Jews. 291 

when he apjoeared, teaching in the Temple. To the expres- 
sions of wonder at the learning shown by a Galilean peasant, 
he replied by declaring his doctrine to be not his own, but His 
that sent him, promising too that whoever desired to do God's 
will should be taught these truths. He denounced the con- 
spiracy against his life on the old charge of having broken 
the Sabbath by the miracle performed on his previous visit 
to Jerusalem. His boldness and impunity raised the question, 
whether the rulers knew that he was indeed the Christ ; but 
still the people were perplexed by his humble and apparently 
well-known origin, so opposed to the mystery with which they 
expected the Christ to come. His miracles, however, which 
it was felt that the Christ himself could not surpass, gained 
many converts ; and the Pharisees and chief priests at length 
sent officers to apprehend him. As they watched their oppor- 
tunity, Jesus continued to discourse in language more and 
more perplexing to his adversaries, till, on the last and great- 
est day of the feast, 8 when the ceremony was performed of 
fetching water from the well of Siloam, and pouring it on the 
altar, while the priests sang the words " With joy shall ye 
draw water out of the wells of salvation," he proclaimed him- 
self the giver of the water of life, meaning thereby the Holy 
Spirit. Upon this the controversy among the people grew 
warmer. Some said that he was the expected prophet ; some 
that he was the Christ; while others again objected his Gal- 
ilean origin, pleading that Christ was to come of the seed of 
David, and from the town of Bethlehem. His more A'ehement 
opponents wished to apprehend him, bat neither they nor the 
officers risked the attempt. Nay, carried away themselves by 
the power of his teaching, the officers returned to their em- 
ployers with the words, " Never man spake like this man." 
As the rulers began to vent curses on all his followers, Nico- 
demus, the secret disciple, who was one of their number, ven- 
tured to remind them that the law forbade the condemning 
of a man unheard ; 9 but he only brought suspicion and taunts 
upon himself, for taking the part of a Galilean. This event- 
ful day was concluded by the dispersion of the people to their 
homes, while Jesus retired to the Mount of Olives. 10 

On his reappearance in the Temple, the next morning, a 
subtle snare was laid for him. The Pharisees and Scribes 
brought to him a woman taken in adultery, and, quoting the 

8 Concerning the order of the Feast i ° Comp. Dent. xix. 16-19. 

of Tabernacles, see the Old Testament \ m John vii. 11, viii. 1. 

History, p. 220. App. toBfc. III. § G. \ 



292 Last Six Months of Christ's Ministry. Chap. X. 

law of Moses, that such should be stoned, 11 asked for his 
judgment of the case, " But what sayest thou?" Either, 
they thought, he must decide against the law, and appear at 
once a blasphemer of Moses and a partisan of gross sin, or in- 
cur popular odium by condemning the culprit to death. But 
Christ well knew how to repel such attacks by an appeal to 
higher principles, which at once justified his conduct and con- 
demned his assailants. The same law which adjudged the 
guilty to death required the witnesses to cast the first stones, 
in token of their abhorrence of the crime. But who dared do 
this, if conscious that his guilt was the same ? And such was 
the prevalent corruption, that all the accusers were in this 
case. So, without answering them, he stooped down and 
wrote in the sand of the Temple court, what we are not told, 
but we may imagine passages of Scripture which would carry 
conviction to the most hardened among them; and then 
rising up, he says, " He that is without sin among you, let him 
first cast a stone at her," and continued his writing. They 
slunk away, from the eldest to the youngest; and as no ac- 
cuser was left, Jesus dismissed the woman with the words, 
" Neither do I condemn thee : go and sin no more," — an ab- 
solution from punishment, which she might, by penitence and 
amendment, convert into the full pardon of her sin. 12 Two 
plain inferences from this transaction deserve notice. The 
tacit confession of gross sin by the Scribes and Pharisees does 
away with the idea that they Avere honest though mistaken 
enthusiasts for what they deemed truth and righteousness; 
and the fact that Christ does not disclaim the authority to 
judge the case — nay, assumes it in his last words — gives an- 
other proof of his divinity. 

Then follows another controversy with the Jews, whose re- 
iterated objection, that Jesus bare witness to himself, is met 
by the reply that the Father bore witness with him. What- 
ever there may seem to be of narrow technicality in the allu- 
sion to the law which required two witnesses, 13 belongs solely 
to their objection, which he repels on their own ground. As 
their opposition became the more obstinate, he the more plainly 
traced it to their corrupt nature, in bondage to sin ; and in re- 
ply to their claim of freedom, as the children of Abraham, he 
denounced them as children of the devil, because they did his 
works, especially in seeking to kill Christ ; while he not only 

11 Lev. xx. 10; Deut. xxii. 21-24. IbestMSS. is accounted for by Angus- 

12 John viii. 2-11. The genuine- J tin from the fear that it might be 
ness of the passage is still a matter perverted into an excuse for sin. 

of discussion. Its omission from the'' 13 Deut. xvii. 6, xix. 15. 



A..D. 29. Controversy with the Jews. 293 

proclaimed himself before Abraham in dignity and glory, but 
assumed to himself the great title of the self-existent Je- 
hovah — " Before Abraham was, I AM." At this they took 
up stones, to stone him as a blasphemer ; but he, who patiently 
suffered when he was condemned even by the show of law, 
conveyed himself by his miraculous power out of the midst of 
the excited rabble, and so left the Temple. 14 

« § 3. He seems, however, not yet to have left the city itself ; 
for the order of St. John's Gospel hardly permits of our refer- 
ring to any other time than this the great miracle of healing a 
man blind from his birth, which furnishes a critical example 
of a miracle tried by every possible test. 15 The act itself was 
prefaced by a rebuke of the hasty judgment of the disciples, 
curious to know whether the man's blindness was to be ascribed 
to his parents' sin or to his own. Jesus, on the other hand, 
saw in him only a fit object for the divine work, which he has- 
tened to perform while it was yet time, alluding to the ap- 
proaching end of his course in the memorable saying: — "I 
must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day : 
the night cometh, lohen no man can icork." Then, giving a 
high meaning to the miracle by declaring himself the Light 
of the World, he spat on the ground and made clay of the 
spittle, with which having anointed the man's eyes, he sent 
him to wash them at the pool, outside the city, which bore 
the appropriate name of Siloam, that is, Sent. 16 In this pro- 
ceeding we have, united with the divine power by which the 
miracle was wrought, the indication of his command over nat- 
ural means, and an act to be performed by the sufferer him- 
self (as in the case of Naaman) which at once tested his faith, 

14 John viii. 12-59. 15 John ix. 1 (viii. 6) and the Siloam of St. John. 

16 Siloam is one of the few undis- 1 From Joscphus we learn that it was 
pnted localities in the topography of without the city ; that it was at this 
Jerusalem ; still retaining its old i pool that the " old wail " took a bend 
name (with Arabic modification, Sil- and shot out eastward ; that there 



icdn), while every other pool has lost 
its Bible designation. This is the 
more remarkable, as it is a mere 
suburban tank of no great size, and 



was a valley under it, and one beside 
it; a hill right opposite, apparently 
on the other side of the Kedron, hard 
by a cliff or rock called Pcristereon ; 



for many an age not particularly ; that it was at the termination or 
good or plentiful in its waters, though j mouth of the Tyropceon; that close 
Josephus tells us that in his day they beside it, apparently eastward, was 
were both "sweet and abundant." j another pool, called Solomon's pool, 
Apart from the identity of name, to which the "old wall" came after 
there is an unbroken chain of exte- : leaving Siloam, and past which it 
rior testimony, during eighteen cen- went on to Ophlas, where, bending 
turies, connecting the present Birket ' northward, it was united to the east- 
Silwdn with the Shiloah of Isaiah I ern arcade of the Temple. 



294 



Last Six Months of Christ 1 s Ministry. 



Chap. X 



and called the attention of those who beheld him going to the 
pool with besmeared eyes, and returning with all the joy of 
restored sight. Many of these had long seen the blind man beg- 
ging at his accustomed seat, and at first they doubted if it were 
he, or another like him. Soon agreed that it was he, they learn- 
ed from him the maimer of the miracle which, he said, had been 
wrought upon his sight by " a man called Jesus," of whom he 
could not tell where he was, — so plain it is that Christ was a 
stranger to the man. The wandering neighbors brought him 
before the Pharisees, whose jealous enmity again, as in the 
miracle at Bethesda, found a pretext in the fact that it loas 
the /Sabbath day. The man answered their questions with 
the same simple story that he had told to his neighbors. The 
growth of conviction among themselves, already hinted at in 
the doubt — " Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees be- 
lieved on him ? " 17 — was now shown in an open division of 
opinion : some repeated the old objection, " This man is not 
of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day;" while 
others rejoined with the unanswerable plea, " How can a man 
that is a sinner do such miracles ? " They could only agree in 
throwing the onus of the decision on the poor man, who de- 
clared at once that he believed Jesus to be a prophet. They 
now tried to throw doubt on the reality of his former state ; 
and thereby only brought out decisive evidence. The caution 
of his parents, who wx>uld not say that their son had been 
healed by Christ, for fear of excommunication, added weight 
to their plain testimony that he had been born blind. Their 
next attempt to extort from the man himself, under the sol- 
emn sanction of an oath, 18 a confession that he had been 
leagued in an imposture with a man whom they knew to be 
a sinner, was disconcerted by the answer, " Whether he be a 
sinner or no, I know not : one thing I know, that, whereas I 
was blind, now I see." As their importunities turned to re- 
vilings,he boldly reproved his judges for their unbelief , and, in 
his simple faith, declared the great principle — " If this man 
were not of God, he could do nothing." Exasperated at being 
thus taught by one whom their prejudice regarded as born in 
sin, they cast him out of the synagogue. But his excommunica- 
tion only made the man's faith in Christ complete, and called 
forth from Jesus the sentence upon the Pharisees that they 
were the truly blind, given up to judicial blindness, the more 



17 John vii.48. 

18 This is the force of the phrase, 
Give glory to God (v. 25) ; that is, by 



telling the truth, as in the appeal of 
Joshua to Achan, Josh vii. 19. 



A.D. 29. Feast of the Dedication. 295 

intense because it was willful : — " If ye were blind, ye should 
have no sin : but ye say, We see ; therefore your sin reniain- 
eth." 

Upon this follows the parable in which he represents himself 
as the Good Shepherd, who knows his own sheep, and preserves 
to life eternal those given to him by his Father, by laying down 
his own life for them, while the hireling (the type of the Jewish 
rulers) only thinks of saving his own life by flight. And in 
speaking of the great voluntary sacrifice he was about to 
complete, he at once asserted his own divine power, foretold 
his resurrection, and rebuked the impotence of their murder- 
ous malice : — " Therefore doth my Father love me, because I 
lay down my life, that I might take it again. ISTo man taketh 
it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to 
lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This com- 
mandment have I received of my Father." At all this, the 
division about him among the people became still more vehe- 
ment, some saying that he had a devil and was mad, others 
that both his words and deeds disproved the charge. 19 

§ 4. From these transactions at the Feast of Tabernacles, 
St. John passes at once over a period of two months, of which 
more will be said presently, to the Feast of the Dedication, in 
the winter ; 20 at which, as Jesus was walking in the portico 
of the Temple, named after Solomon, 21 he was pressed by 
the Jews to relieve them from all doubt, and to tell them 
plainly whether he was the Christ. He replied by reminding 
them of what he had told them before, and of the works he 
had done ; and, recurring to the parable concerning his sheep, 
he accounts for their obstinate unbelief because they were 
none of his, and re-asserts more plainly than ever his equality 
with the Father. Once more they took up stones, to stone 
him as a blasphemer ; but he vindicated his claims from 
the Scriptures and from his works ; and when they tried to 
take him, he again escaped, and retired to Bethabara beyond 
the Jordan, the place where John had baptized. There he 
remained for some time, and many were led to believe in him 
by comparing his miracles with John's predictions. 22 From 
this place of retirement Jesus was summoned to Bethany by 
the tidings of the illness of Lazarus ; and, after raising him 

19 John x. 1-21. I 21 Comp. Acts iii. 11, v. 12. 

20 John x. 22. This was the festi- j 22 John x. 22-42. It would almost 
val on the 25th of Chisleu (the begin- i seem as if the place had become a 
ning of December), instituted by Ju- j sort of head-quarters of John's disci- 
das Maccabauis on the cleansing of ; pies. 

the Temple. See chap. ii. § 4, p. 37. i 



296 



Last Six Months of Christ's Ministry. Chap. X 



from the dead, our Lord again retired to " a country near 
the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim," where he remained 
with his disciples till the approach of his last Passover. 23 Six 
days before the Passover, he is again at Bethany ; and here 
the narrative of St. John falls in again with the other three 
Gospels. 24 

Now these brief notices by St. John cover a period of about 
six months — two from the Feast of Tabernacles to the Feast 
of Dedication, and four from the latter to the Passover — 
concerning which St. Matthew and St. Mark are almost si- 
lent ; but on turning to St. Luke, we find it necessary to place 
in this interval that large section which contains some of the 
most striking parables and most impressive discourses record- 
ed in his Gospel. 25 The three Evangelists all notice the depart- 
ure of Christ from Galilee for Judaea ; 26 and the two former 
then pass on, with only one incident between, 27 to the events 
which Luke places just before our Lord's final return to Jeru- 
salem, concluding with the healing of the blind men at Jeri- 
cho, in which we have a concurrence of place as well as time. 2 " 
Unless, therefore, we give up all idea of chronological order 
in this part of St. Luke's Gospel, the whole section referred 
to must be placed between the Feast of Tabernacles and the 
return to Bethany before the Passover ; and then there re- 
mains the still more difficult question, which portion of it is 
to be placed before the Feast of Dedication, and which por- 
tion after. The question is one of the most difficult in the 
whole Gospel Harmony : nor is its importance at all equal to 
the labor spent on its discussion ; for the great discourses 
and parables recorded both by St. Luke and St. John have 
no relation to the particular time or order of their delivery. 
The list of them will be seen in the " Table of the Harmony 
of the Four Gospels" (p. 373, foil.). Their exposition lies be- 
yond the scope of this work. The order of the incidents, 
which appears on the whole preferable, and which agrees in 
the main with Dr. Robinson's scheme, will appear in the 
following narrative. 

§ 5. The two months between the Feast of Tabernacles 
and that of the Dedication seem to have been spent partly in 



23 John xi. 54, 55. 

24 John xii. 1 : comp. Matt. xxi. 1 ; 
Mark xi. 1 ; Luke xix. 29, all which 
passages mark Bethany as the place 
where Christ entered Jerusalem. 

26 Luke x. 17-xviii. 14. 



27 The tempting question of the 
Pharisees, which gave occasion for 
our Lord's teaching about divorce, 
Matt. xix. 3-12 ; Mark x. 2-12. 

28 Matt. xix. 13, xx. 34; Mark x 
13-52 ; Luke xviii. 15, xix. 1. 



Matt. xix. 1 ; Mark x. 1 ; Luke ix. 5 1 . 



A.D. 30. Lazarus liaised to Life. 297 

Jerusalem and partly in its neighborhood, especially in that hap- 
py home at Bethany™ the house of Lazarus, and his sisters 
Martha and Mary. Even here there were differences of char- 
acter ; but Christ knew how to use and improve them. The 
zealous, active Martha, who seems to have been the elder 
sister, was the first to receive Jesus into the house, where her 
gentle sister Mary sat at his feet and heard his word. Bus- 
ied with the cares of hospitality, in which she desired to show 
such a guest unusual honor, Martha appealed to Jesus to 
command her sister's help. But he assured her that all her 
anxiety was superfluous, compared to the one thing which 
alone is needful, and Mary had chosen that good part, which 
would be hers forever, when all cares about the body should 
have ceased. 30 Though Martha needed the lesson, as she after- 
ward needed a rebuke to that impatience which often goes 
with zeal, 31 we must not misunderstand the narrative, as if 
she were altogether in the wrong. Her zeal was honored in 
its turn ; and she had an equal share with her brother and 
sister in the Lord's affection. 32 

The highest proof of this affection was furnished by that 
which is at the same time the greatest of our Saviour's mir- 
acles. Driven, as we have seen, from Jerusalem by renewed 
plots against his life at the Feast of the Dedication, he re- 
tired beyond the Jordan, to the place where John first bap- 
tized, and remained there for some time receiving many new 
disciples. 33 He seems to have been still at Bethabara, when 
he received tidings of what he knew to be the mortal illness 
of his beloved friend Lazarus. It would be folly to attempt 



29 It was situated " at " (7rpoc) the I mountain hamlet of some twenty- 
Mount of Olives (Mark xi. 1 ; Luke families. In the village are shown 
xix. 29), about fifteen stadia from the traditional sites of the house and 
Jerusalem (John xi. 18), on or near tomb of Lazarus. The house of Si- 
the usual road from Jericho to the mon the leper is also exhibited. The 
city (Luke xix. 29, comp. 1 ; Mark name Beth-any is usually explained 
xi. 1, comp. x. 46), and close by and to mean House of Dates ; but Mr. H. 
west (?) of another village called Dixon has given good reasons for be- 
Bethphage, the two being several lieving that the word really signifies 
times mentioned together. Bethany House of tlie Poor (The Holy Land, 
is now known by a name derived from p. 214). 

Lazarus — el- Azariyeh or Lazarieh. It ^ Luke x. 38-42 : comp. John xi. 
lies on the eastern slope of the Mount j 1, xii. 1-3 ; Matt.vi. 33 ; John xvii 3; 
of Olives, fully a mile beyond the Psalm lxiii. 24-26 ; John iv. 14. 
summit, and not very far from the j ;1 John xi. 24, foil, 
point at which the road to Jericho be- \ 32 John xi. 5, 20. 
gins its more sudden descent toward 33 John x. 39-42, In the interval 
the Jordan valley. El- Azariyeh is a before this feast Robinson places the 
ruinous and wretched village, a wild return of the seventv disciples and 
N 2 



298 Last Six Months of Christ's Ministry. Chap. X. 

to relate, in other words, that most pathetic of all the records 
that human language has ever embodied. Our Lord gave 
the crowning testimony of his own works to his supreme 
power over life and death, by restoring life to a body upon 
which corruption had laid its hold; and he taught the full 
significance of the miracle by the words : — " I am the Res- 
urrection" and the Life : he that believeth in me, though 
he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and be- 
lieveth in me shall never die." 34 

§ 6. The miracle was witnessed by many of the Jews, who 
had come out of Jerusalem to Bethany (the distance being 
only two miles) to console the bereaved sisters. Even the 
deep distress of Jesus at his friend's death had given some 
of them occasion to express their unbelieving cavils; 35 and, 
while some were convinced by the miracle, others went away 
to give information to the Pharisees. 36 A council was at 
once summoned; and the discordant religious views of the 
different sects were overcome by the common alarm, lest 
Christ's success should provoke the jealousy of Rome, and bring 
down destruction on the nation. Caiaphas, the high-priest, 
the leader of the rulers, took up the argument of political ex- 
pediency, and proposed that one man should be given up to 
death as a substitute for the whole people. These words ex- 
pressed a meaning far deeper than he himself understood; 
and his suggestion of a sacrifice to save the people from the 
anger of Caesar was in fact a prophecy, which the Holy 
Spirit uttered through him as the head of the nation, of the 
atonement which the death of Christ should make for the 
sins of all the world and the common salvation of all God's 
people. 37 From that hour the death of Jesus was resolved 
on ; and the only hindrance to its accomplishment was God's 
purpose that the sacrifice should be offered at the Passover. 
To this end Jesus withdrew to Ephraim in the wilderness, 
and remained there with his disciples. 38 Thence he seems to 
have withdrawn beyond the Jordan, perhaps to place himself 
within Herod's jurisdiction ; for he was clearly in Peraea 

the parable of the Good Samaritan : In this case the conjecture of Dr. 
Luke x. 17-37. ! Robinson is very admissible, that 

John xi. 1-44. 35 John xi. 37. Ophrah and Ephraim are identical, 



36 Vers. 45, 46. 

37 John xi. 47-52. 

38 John xi. 53,54. By the "wil- 
derness" (eprj/j.o£) is probably meant 
the wild uncultivated hill-country 



and that their modern representative 
is et-Taiyibeh, a village on a conspic- 
uous conical hill, commanding a view 
" over the whole eastern slope, the 
valley of the Jordan and the Dead 



N.E. of Jerusalem, lying between the ! Sea" (Rob. i. 444). It is situated 4 
central towns and the Jordan valley. J or 5 miles east of Bethel, and 16 from 



A.D. 30. Final Arrival at Bethany. 299 

when he commenced that final movement toward Jerusalem, 
which forms the turning-point in the narrative of St. Luke. 39 

§ 1. As he proceeded leisurely through Persea toward 
Jerusalem, teaching in the villages on the way, he was warn- 
ed of Herod's designs on his life. The information was given 
by the Pharisees, evidently with the view of hastening our 
Lord's return within their own reach — " Get thee out, and 
depart hence : for Herod will kill thee" — and his answer in- 
volved a keen rebuke of their treacherous affectation of re- 
gard for his safety. He bids them go themselves to tell 
Herod that His time was indeed at hand, but that his course 
was not to be shortened by the wiles of "that fox." His 
death was to be accomplished by the open violence of his 
own countrymen at Jerusalem, where former prophets had 
been slain, " for it can not be that a prophet perish out of Jeru- 
salem]" And then, apostrophizing the city, to which his 
face was now turned, he uttered that exquisitely pathetic 
lamentation, which he afterward repeated in sight of its 
walls. 40 His ministry had led him thither at least four times, 
and this visit was to be his last, the last visit of any prophet ; 
and thenceforth the place which God had chosen for his 
house would be left desolate, and they should see him no 
more, till the day when, in a sense yet to be accomplished, 
they should say, " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of 
the Lord." 41 

§ 8. To this progress through Peraea should probably be 
referred those most impressive parables and lessons which 
occupy the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th chapters of St. 
Luke, 42 the last few of which, as already observed, bring this 
Gospel again into connection with those of Matthew and 
Mark. As bearing upon the course of our Saviour's history, 
we should especially notice the warning which he gives his 
disciples, now for the third time, and in greater detail than be- 
fore, of his passion, death, and resurrection ; 43 and his answer 



Jerusalem ; a position agreeing toler- 
ably with the indications of Jerome in 
the Onomasticon (Ephvaim, Ephron), 
and is too conspicuous to have es- 
caped mention in the Bible. 

39 Luke xiii. 22; Matt. xix. 1, 2. 

40 Luke xiii. 31-35 : comp. Matt, 
xxiii. 37-39. 

41 Comp. Ps. cxviii. 26. To make 



final rejection — betrays the greatest 
confusion of thought. Our Lord 
only alludes to the vain "Hosannas" 
of that day as a contrast to the true 
welcome that is yet to be given to 
Him by the Jews in common with the 
Gentiles (comp. Rev. i. 7). 

42 For the enumeration, see the 
Table of the Harmony of the 



this prophecy refer to our Lord's en- j Gospels (p. 375). 

try into Jerusalem a few days after- I 43 Matt. xx. 17-19 ; Mark x. 32- 

ward — an event which preceded his \ 34 ; Luke xviii. 31-34. 



300 Last Six Months of Christ 1 s Ministry. Chap. X. 

to the ambitious request of the sons of Zebedee, which taught 
that all must suffer with him before they reign with him. 44 

§ 9. He now crossed the Jordan, and advanced toward 
Jerusalem by the high road through Jericho. That city was 
the scene of the healing of two blind men, who saluted Jesus 
as the Son of David, 45 and of the conversion of the publican 
Zacchseus. 46 At length, while the Jews, who had already as- 
sembled at Jerusalem to purify themselves before the Pass- 
over, were wondering whether he would come, and the chief 
priests and Pharisees had commanded his first appearance to 
be announced to them, that he might be apprehended, he ar- 
rived at Bethany six days before the Passover, that is, on 
Friday the 8th of Nisan, the eve of the Sabbath. 47 The Sab- 
bath was spent at Bethany ; and to the evening succeeding it 
we should probably refer (though the matter has been much 
disputed) the supper in the house of Simon the leper, at 
which Martha served, while Lazarus sat at table, and at which 
Mary anointed Christ in preparation for his burial. 48 His 
presence there was soon known at Jerusalem, and many of 
the Jews went out with the double motive of seeing Jesus, 
and Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. The living 
proof of the miracle converted into believers many who had 
gone from curiosity. At this the Pharisees were doubly en- 
raged ; and perhaps history records no example of infatuation 
equal to their resolve to put Lazarus as well as Jesus to 
death. 49 This Sabbath was the ninth of Nisan, which in that 



44 Matt. xx. 20-28 ; Mark x. 35-45. 

45 Matt. xx. 29-34 ; Mark x. 46- 
52 ; Luke xviii. 35, xix. 1. It is un- 
necessary to discuss the apparent dis- 
crepancy, the very existence of which 
is a proof of the independence and 
honesty of the witnesses. Possible 
reconciliations have been suggested, 
enough to show that there is no real 
contradiction. 



have given a feast and received a 
multitude of guests. Among the 
conjectural explanations which have 
been given of this difference, the hy- 
pothesis that this Simon was the fa- 
ther of the two sisters and of Lazarus, 
that he had been smitten with leprosy, 
and that actual death, or the civil 
death that followed on his disease, 
had left his children free to act for 



46 Luke xix. 2-28. Observe the I themselves, is at least as probable as 
express notice, in the last verse, of his ! any other, and has some support in 
leaving Jericho for Jerusalem. j early ecclesiastical tradition. 

47 John xii. 1. Dr. Robinson (Hai-mony) takes the 

48 John xii. 2-8; Matt. xxvi. 1-10; , ' ; six days before the Passover" to 
Mark xiv. 1-11. In John the feast! include both extremes; and so places 
is represented as taking place in the Christ's arrival at Bethany on the 



house of Mary and Martha ; in Mat 
thew and Mark as in the house of Si- 
mon the leper. But a leper, as such, 
would have been compelled to lead a 



Sabbath itself (the 9th of Nisan) post- 
poning the feast in Simon's house to- 
the Tuesday evening. 

49 John xii. 9-11. The first im- 



separate life, and certainly could not pression produced by this passag* 



A.D. 30- 



Table of the Ensuing Week. 



301 



year corresponded to March 31st of the Julian Calendar. 
The intervention of the Sabbath delayed the execution of the 
design till the following week, when Jesus at length " offered 
himself" publicly in the spirit of the prophecy : "Lo! I come, 
to do thy will, O God." 50 



would perhaps be that the raising of I gratification of which the first oppor- 
Lazarus was a recent event. But tunity was now given (comp. John 

xii. 17, 18). 

60 Ps. xl. 6 ; Heb. x. 5-9. 



our Lord's absence in Ephraim would 
whet that public curiosity, for the 



TABLE OF THE ENSUING WEEK. 

(The Jewish days are to be reckoned from the preceding sunset.) 

March 31. Sabisatu at Bethany. Evening ; Simon's Supper. 

1. Palm Sunday. Entry into Jerusalem. 

2. Jesus again in the Temple. 

3. Last visit to the Temple. Prophecy of his second coming 

4. Conspiracy of the rulers. 

5. Evening. The Passover, and Lord's Supper. 

6. Good Friday. The Crucifixion, and Entombment. 
T. Sabbath. Easter Eve. 
8. Easter Day. The Resurrection. 

Th. Sivan 3. May 17. Holy Thursday. The Ascension. 

S. Sivan 13. May 27. Pentecost. Whitsunday. 



S. 


Nisan 


9. Marc! 


s. 


" 


10. April 


M. 


it 


11. " 


Tu. 


u 


12. " 


W. 


" 


13. " 


Th. 


u 


14. " 


F. 


" 


15. » 


S. 


«* 


16. " 


s. 


' l 


17. " 




Gethsemane. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. FROM PALM SUNDAY TO EASTER 
EVE, APRIL 1ST TO APRIL YTII, A.L\ 30. 

§ 1. The First Day of the Paschal Week: Sunday, April 1st, the 10th of Nisan ; 
the Paschal Lamb selected — Christ fulfills the prophecy of Zechariah 
by entering Jerusalem — The Hosannas of the people — Fie returns to 
Bethany. § 2. Second Day of the Week: the 11th of Nisan, Monday, 
April 2d — Cleansing of the Temple — The barren fig-tree. § 3. Third 
Day of the Week: the 12th of Nisan, Tuesday, April 3d ; the last great 
day of our Lord's teaching in the Temple — Lessons to his disciples by 
the way — Rebuke of the Pharisees, who questioned his authority — 
Parables concerning their rejection of him. § 4. Devices to entrap him 
— The Pharisees and Herodians — The dues of Caesar and of God — The 
Sadducces and the Resurrection— The Pharisees and Scribes — The 
Great Commandment. § 5. Jesus now questions them : How is Christ 
at once David's Son and Lord ? Denunciation of the Scribes and 
Pharisees as hypocrites — Lamentation over Jerusalem — Praise of the 
poor widow— Christ's final departure from the Temple. § 6. His 
prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the end of the world. 
§ 7. Consultation of the Jews in the house of Caiaphas — Treason of 
Judas Iscariot. § 8. Fourth Day of the Week: the 13th of Nisan, Wed- 
nesday, April 4th — A break in the Gospel narrative. § 9. Fifth Day 
of the Week: the 14th of Nisan, Thursday, April 5th, till sunset — The 



A.D. 30. Christ's Eniry into Jerusalem. 303 

first day of Unleavened Bread — Preparation for the Passover. § 10. 
Evening. The Passover killed — Jesus eats the Paschal Supper with his 
disciples — He washes the disciples' feet — Reveals the treachery of Judas 
— Declares that his hour is come ; and warns Peter of his fall, and the 
rest of their desertion. § 11. Institution of the Lord's Supper — 
Christ's last discourse and intercessory prayer. § 12. They go out to 
the Mount of Olives — Christ's agony in the Garden — An angel 
strengthens him — Sleep of his disciples. § 13. Arrival of Judas, and 
arrest of Jesus — Flight of all the disciples but Peter and John — Jesus 
in the house of Annas — Peter denies his Master — Jesus interrogated by 
the High-Priest. § 14. Sixth Day of the Week: the 15th of Nisan, Fri- 
day, April 6th — Good Friday — Jesus arraigned before the Sanhedrim 
as a false prophet and blasphemer — The suborned witnesses break down 
— He avows himself the Christ the Son of God ; and is condemned and 
buffeted. § 15. The impotence of the Jews to execute the sentence 
secures the concurrence of the Gentiles in his death, and its execution 
by the Cross — They bring him before Pilate on the charge of making 
himself a king — His kingdom not of this world — "What is truth?" — 
Pilate finds no fault in him — Sends him to Herod, who mocks him — 
Pilate's offer to release Christ — The people choose Barabbas — The en- 
suing contest, and Pilate's final sentence — Remorse and suicide of Ju- 
das Iscariot. § 16. The Crucifixion — a Roman execution, with some 
peculiar circumstances — The place : Golgotha or Calvary — The bearing 
of the Cross — Simon the Cyrenian — The lamenting women — The two 
thieves — The wine and myrrh refused — The first of the Seven Sayings — 
Time of the Crucifixion — The soldiers part Christ's garments — Pilate's 
superscription on the Cross. § 17. Taunts and temptations of the pass- 
ers-by — The impenitent and the penitent thief — Christ's second saying 
— the Virgin Mary and St. John — Christ's third saying — The miracu- 
lous darkness — Christ's sense of desertion — His fourth saying — His dy- 
ing thirst — His last three sayings — "It is finished!" — Portents at his 
death — The Centurion's confession — Departure of the people. § 18. 
Preparation for the Sabbath — The legs of the thieves broken — Jesus is 
found already dead — His side pierced — The " blood and water " — Phys- 
ical cause of his death. § 19. The entombment of Christ. § 20. 
Seventh Day of the Week: the 16th of Nisan, Saturday, April 7th, from 
the preceding sunset — The watch and seal set upon the sepulchre. — 
Note. It is an interesting fact that the days of Nisan fall among the 
days of the week in the same way in a.d. 30, and in a.d. 33, in which 
the Authorized Version and Mr. Lewin place the Passion. 

§ 1. The great events of the succeeding eight days, in- 
cluding the " Passion Week " and " Easter Day," must be 
viewed as one connected series ; and the Evangelists enable 
us to trace the incidents of each day. In denoting the days 
for clearness sake, by their present names, it must be remem- 
bered that the corresponding Jewish days began from sunset 
on the preceding evening. St. Luke gives us this general 
description of our Lord's proceedings on the first three days 
of the week : — " In the day-time he was teaching in the tem- 
ple, and a' niojht he went out and abode in the Mount oi 
Olives." x 

1 Luke xxi. 37. 



304 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XI. 

(1.) Palm, Sunday, the 10th of Nisan (April 1st). — This 
was the day on which the lamb for the Passover was select- 
ed, to be kept up till the time of slaying it. In fulfillment of 
the type, as himself the Lamb of God, chosen before the 
foundation of the world but now made manifest, and antici- 
pating the plans of his enemies to seize him, Christ prepared 
to present himself in the Temple at Jerusalem. But he came 
to the people also in another character, as the promised son 
of David, their rightful king and judge. In a most wondrous 
manner did he unite the assertion of his high claims with the 
meekness of the victim ; while he abstained from giving any 
just offense to the Roman powers. The prophet Zechariah had 
both foretold the manner and explained the meaning of this 
the great advent of the Messiah : — " Rejoice greatly, O 
daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem : behold 
thy King cometh unto thee : He is just, and having salva- 
tion ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the 
foal of an ass." 2 But there was none of the elaborate 
preparation which marks a royal entrance. Two disci- 
ples, sent forward from Bethany to Bethphage, a village 
higher up on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, 3 
found an ass tied up to a door at the meeting of two 
roads, Avith her colt, on which no man had yet ridden, and 
they had only to say to the owner, " The Lord hath need of 
them," to obtain them. Whether the owner was a disciple, 
or whether his mind was bowed at the moment to the Lord's 
will, is not explained. The only trappings of the ass were the 
coarse garments of the disciples, doubtless travel-stained and 
worn ; and so Jesus mounted the eastern slope of the Mount 
of Olives with far less of outward pomp than even David 
when he returned from exile. But he met with a reception 



2 Zech. ix. 9. In the old times of 
Israel, judges and their sons, and aft- 
erwardthe king's sons, rode upon asses. 

3 There are no vestiges of the site 
of Bethphage (the House of Figs). 



and Bethphage, being named first, is 
commonly supposed to be the more 
easterly, but the inference is of course 
uncertain. It is clear from St. John 
that Bethany was the place of our 



We follow the tradition, which places | Lord's abode, doubtless in the house 
the village about half-way between | of Lazarus ; and the same Evangelist 



Bethany andthe summit of the Mount, i specifies the time, "on the next day 
as best suiting the narrative. St. after the supper in Simon's house 



Matthew seems clearly to imply that i that is, if this supper be rightly placed 
Bethphage was the village to which on the evening of Saturday (Matt, 
the disciples were sent. St. Mark xxi. 1 , foil. ; Mark xi. 1, foil. ; Luke 
and St. Luke mention "Bethphage xix. 29, foil. ; John xii. 12). — Re- 
and Bethany " together, as villages ! specting the localities mentioned in 
on the Mount of Olives, at which Je- { connection with the Mount of Olives, 
sus arrived on his road from Jericho ; ! see Notes and Illustrations (A). 



A.D. 30. Jesus Cleanses the Temple. 305 

apparently as joyful and as worthy of a restored monarch. 
The multitude who had come to the feast, hearing of his ap- 
proach, and moved by the crowning miracle of the resurrec- 
tion of Lazarus, went forth to meet him, bearing in their hands 
the fronds of the palm-tree, the well-known sign of victory, 
and spreading their garments beneath his feet. As he began 
to descend the Mount, in full view of the Temple, all the dis- 
ciples burst forth into a shout of joy, praising God for all the 
wondrous works that Christ had done, and the people took up 
the cry, in the prophetic words of David himself, saying, 
Hosanna to the Son of David, that is, " The Lord preserve 
the Son of David." They blessed him as the King of Israel, 
head of the kingdom of their father David, coming in the 
name of Jehovah, and repeated the welcome with which the 
angels had heralded his birth. 4 For the moment, the Phari- 
sees thought that all their plots were frustrated, and said to 
each other, " Perceive ye how we prevail nothing ? Behold, 
the world is gone after him." Some of them took courage to 
address him in an affected protest against the enthusiasm 
which endangered all concerned — " Master, rebuke thy disci- 
ples ! " And he answered, " I tell you that, if these should 
hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out !" 5 

In all this scene, there is more of the king than of the vic- 
tim ; and this was in truth the first part of its complex char- 
acter. We know, what was as yet hidden even from the dis- 
ciples," that the eternal purpose of God for man's redemption 
demanded Christ's death before his triumph ; and we dare 
not pry into the mystery of any possible alternative. But to 
the Jewish people the alternative was now distinctly offered, 
for the last time, between the acceptance and the rejection of 
their spiritual king, and, even amid their shouts of triumph, 
the evil choice was made by the malice of the priests and the 
fickleness of the people. Reverting to the type of the Paschal 
Lamb ; as it was selected from the best of the nock, without 
spot or blemish, so the people's praises marked out Christ, on 
this 10th of Nisan, as the faultless Lamb of God. And he 
Well knew the issue ; and so, pausing in his triumphal progress 
as he drew near to the city, he once more bewailed its rejec- 
tion of the day of grace, and predicted its destruction. 7 



4 Comp. Ps. cxviii. 25 ; Luke ii. 14. 

5 Matt. xxi. 1-16 ; Mark xi. 1-10 ; 
Luke xix. 21-40 ; John xii. 12-16. 

G John xii. 16. 



mark of certainty, is to be observed 
in this prediction of our Lord •, first, 
on his way to Jerusalem ; secondly, 
on this occasion ; thirdly, during his 



7 Luke xix. 39-44. That frequent j last day in the Temple ; and finally, 
repetition, which is esteemed the I on his last farewell to the city- 



306 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap XI 

Entering into Jerusalem and the Temple, he still met with 
the same reception, the people crying, " This is Jesus, the 
prophet of Nazareth of Galilee ! " and coming to him in the 
Temple to be healed. What most incensed the chief priests 
and scribes was to hear the children crying in the Tem- 
ple, " Hosanna to the Son of David ; " and, as before, they 
asked him to silence them ; but he only reminded them of 
David's words, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings 
thou hast perfected praise." In the evening he returned to 
Bethany. 8 

§ 2. Monday, the 11th of JVisan [April 2d). — Having on 
the preceding days shown himself in the Temple as King in 
Zion, amid the acclamations of the people, Jesus now proceed- 
ed to the practical exertion of his authority by cleansing the 
Temple, as he had already done at the commencement of his 
ministry. There is, however, a striking difference between 
the two scenes, in the greater severity which he now used. 
Instead of the command to the dove-sellers, " Take these things 
hence," he overthrew their seats as well as the tables of the 
money-changers. While there was a hope of reformation, he 
had been content with the language of remonstrance, " Make 
not my Father's house a house of merchandise ; " but now 
that the offenders had resumed a traffic doubtless as dishon- 
est as it was unlawful, he takes up the stern language of the 
judge, not without a hint that the privileges they abused 
should be extended to strangers, who would use them better : 
" It is written, My house shall be called of all nations the 
house of prayer ; but ye have made it a den of thieves." He 
continued teaching in the Temple, the chief priests not daring 
to lay hands on him amid the attentive crowds.* 

On the same day a striking incident had occurred, on his 
way from Bethany to Jerusalem in the morning. Eager to 
" be about his Father's work," and not to disappoint the people 
who " came early in the morning to hear him in the Tem- 
ple," 10 he left Bethany before the hour of breakfast, which in 
the East is late in the morning ; and, being hungry, he looked 
for some figs on one of the trees, which grew among the 
olives on the Mount, as is indicated by the name of Bethphage 
(the House of Figs). This particular tree seems to have 
been distinguished by a show of leaves unusual for so early a 
period of the season, which gave the hope that there might 
perhaps be fruit among them ; but he found none, " for the 

8 Matt. xxi. 10-17-$ Mark xi. 11. Ill); Luke xix. 45-48 : comp. John ii. 
Matt. xxi. 12, 13; Mark xi. 15- 1 13-17. 10 Luke xxi. 38. 



A.D. 30. The Barren Fig-Tree. 307 

time of figs was not yet." So he uttered the doom against 
it, " Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever." The 
sentence took effect at once, and on the following morning the 
fig-tree was found dead. 11 

This is eminently a case in which the objections of a short- 
sighted infidelity carry with them their own refutation ; for 
even the lowest view of Christ's character, as confessedly 
among the best of men, is inconsistent with, such an explosion 
of unreasonable anger as cursing a tree for not bearing fruit 
before its time ; nor could w T e understand God's hearing such 
a prayer ! But in truth, he saw in that luxuriant but barren 
fig-tree a fit type of the Jewish people, with the fair out- 
ward show of religion that they had preserved since the Cap- 
tivity, but with no fruit fit for their Lord's use. The figure 
was the more appropriate in that very point which has been 
ignorantly converted into an objection. " The time of figs 
was not yet ; " but neither properly was it the time of leaves. 
The fruit of the fig-tree is formed before the leaves open; 
and when they are fully expanded, ripe fruit ought to be found 
behind them. So the tree was a fit type of that premature 
outward show of devotion with which he w~as even now wel- 
comed by the people, the fruit of whose " Hosannas " would 
soon be " Crucify him ! " and it v^as on such a deceitful show 
that his sentence really fell. In any case, let us remember that 
he was the Lord of the creation ; and this, his only miracle 
of destruction, furnished a most emphatic warning to the peo- 
ple who had often been described as trees of the Lord's plant- 
ing, but as often warned that they would be rooted up, if they 
bare no fruit worthy of repentance. 

§ 3. Tuesday, the 11th of Wi sail {April 3d), is memorable 
as the last day of our Lord's public teaching ; and the story of 
it comprises an epitome of his controversies with his enemies, 
his most solemn lessons to his disciples and the people, and 
his prophesies and warnings concerning the end of the Mosa- 
ic dispensation and of the world itself and his own final 
coming as the Judge of men. 

On the walk from Bethany to Jerusalem, the surprise of 
the disciples at seeing the fig-tree already dead led our 
Saviour to inculcate faith as the means of working such won- 
ders and of obtaining the answer to prayer, and mutual for- 
giveness as p condition of prayer being heard by God. 12 On 
his entrance into the Temple, the chief priests and scribes, 

11 Matt. xxi. 18, 19; Mark xi. 12- 12 Matt. xxi. 20-22; Mark xi. 20- 
14, 20. I 26. 



308 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XI 

somewhat recovered from their astonishment of the previous 
day, demanded the authority by which he had acted. Their 
object was doubtless to elicit such a declaration of his divine 
power, as had already more than once exposed him to the 
danger of being stoned as a blasphemer. Jesus met the 
question by another, which, while it implied the answer, con- 
founded their scheme. He asked them to tell him, first, 
whether the baptism of John was from heaven or of man. If 
they confessed the former, they stood convicted as unbe- 
lievers ; but, if they maintained the latter, they themselves 
would be exposed to the fury of the common people, who all 
held John to be a prophet. So they were put to silence; 
and Jesus pointed the moral of the scene by the parable of 
the Two Sons and the Vineyard. 1 * Still more striking pict- 
ures were given of their guilt in his rejection, and of God's 
purpose to transfer to others the privileges they had forfeit- 
ed, by the parables of the Wicked Husbandmen™ and of the 
Wedding Garment ^ 

§ 4. Some effort must now be made to check the influence 
of all these discourses on the people ; and each party of his 
enemies tried in turn both to gain a victory over him in ar- 
gument, and to entrap him out of his own mouth. The first 
scheme, concerted by the Pharisees with the Herodians, who 
were friendly to the Roman power, was to convict him of 
treason to Caesar. But he pointed to the fact that their 
money bore the image and superscription of Caesar as a proof 
that, by accepting the emperor's protection, they had them- 
selves decided the lawfulness of paying tribute, and he laid 
down for all such cases the great law, " Render to Caesar the 
things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are 
God's." So they were put to silence. 16 

The Sadducees made the next attempt, proposing a case 
which seemed to place the Mosaic law of levirate marriages in 
conflict with the doctrine of the resurrection, and so tempting 
Jesus either to join them in denying the doctrine, or to dis- 
credit the authority of Moses. After sweeping away the falla- 
cy by declaring the spirituality of the future state, Christ 
goes on to refute the Sadducean objections to the resurrec- 
tion out of the Pentateuch itself, which some suppose to have 
been the only part of the Scriptures that they received. The 



15 Matt. xxii. 1-14. 

16 Matt, xxii. 15-22 ; Mark xii. 13- 
' • Luke xx. 20-26, 



13 Matt. xxi. 23-32 ; 


Mark xi. 27- j 


33 ; Luke xx. 1-8. 




14 Matt. xxi. 33-46 ; 


Mark xii. 1-1 


12 ; Luke xx. 9-19. 


1 



A.D. 30. Pharisees and Sadducees Refuted. 309 

argument, from the fact of God's declaring himself to Moses 
as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that " they all live 
unto God," 17 may seem rather to bear upon the immortality of 
the soul than the resurrection of the body. But this was the 
very point of the Sadducean heresy. They acknowledged 
neither angel nor disembodied spirit, and so from their point 
of view the argument was conclusive. 16 

On learning the discomfiture of their rivals, the Pharisees 
made a last combined effort for victory. Their own teaching 
was full of subtle comparisons and minute distinctions be- 
tween the various commandments of God's law. They might 
well suppose that they were opening an unbounded field for 
controversy, and obtaining immense chances of advantage, by 
proposing the question, "Which is the great commandment in 
the law ? " or, as it stands in St. Mark, " Which is the first 
commandment of all?'''' The reply was at. once our Lord's 
final triumph over error, and the very central truth of all his 
doctrine. Heedless of their refinements, he marks that as the 
first and great commandment which is the sum and root of 
all the rest, Love to God ; created as a principle in the heart, 
imbuing the soul — the whole nature of the living man, formed 
into a sound doctrine by the mind, and carried out practically 
with all his strength. It deserves remark, that the tongue, 
which is so often the only instrument of professing love to 
God, is not here mentioned. To complete the lesson, and to 
leave no room for perverse distinctions between duties to 
God and man, our Lord makes the second commandment, 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," the necessary re- 
sult and complement of the first. The lesson was the more 
impressive and convincing, inasmuch as this double command- 
ment was not, though it might well have been, the Great Teach- 
er's epitome of the law in his own words, but both its 
branches were to be found, in so many words, in the law of 
Moses. So in our Saviour's private exposition of the same 
doctrine to his disciples, he taught them that it was no new 
commandment, though it had a new life, as coming from him- 
self, and as a principle created in their hearts by the Holy 
Spirit. 

This was the last lesson of positive doctrine that our Saviour 

17 Exod. iii. 6. " Tn the bush" is ] demolishes the fancy that the Jews 
supposed to denote this section of the had no knowledge of a future state. 
Book of Exodus. The phrase " Even ' (See above, p. 171). 
Moses shewed'' indicates how much I 1S Matt. xxii. 23-33 ; Mark xii. 18- 
wider an ai'gument might have been , 27; Luke xx. 27-40. 
drawn from the other Scriptures, and 



310 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XI. 

taught in public. He had begun his ministry by declaring 
that he came to fulfill the law and the prophets : he closed it 
by announcing that " Love is the fulfilling of the Law." 
Scarcely less interesting than the truth itself is the effect it had 
on the hearers. The very Scribe who had proposed the ques- 
tion, seeing the harmony of the answer with Scripture, and 
catching a glimpse of its spiritual meaning which all his learn- 
ing had never given him before, was the first to confess its 
truth in words worthy of being adopted as the Christian 
creed, and with a heartiness which called forth from Jesus the 
reply, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven." 
There the sacred story leaves him s but may we not suppose 
him to be a type of many, who were prepared in heart, at this 
last hour of Christ's ministry, for the conversion which passed 
upon them after his ascension? 19 

§ 5. Meanwhile our Lord's reply had finally silenced all the 
cavilers : u No man after that durst ask him any question." 
And now the time was come for him to question them, and to 
make a last exposure of their destructive system of hypocrisy, 
as a warning to his disciples and the people. Looking upon 
the Scribes and Pharisees, who had assembled in the Temple 
to enjoy their expected triumph, he proposed a question 
which at once implied his own double claim to the throne of 
David and of God, and left those who rejected it in either 
part without excuse : — How could Christ be at the same time 
David's Son, and his Lord, seated at the right hand of the 
throne of God ? 20 The only possible answer was that full ad- 
mission of the spiritual nature of the kingdom of Christ, 
which would have identified him in all points with Jesus, and 
rather than confess this, their obstinate silence rejected the 
last opportunity of offered grace.' 21 

Then ensued our Lord's final outpouring of just indigna- 
tion on the false and profligate teachers who had long led on 
the people, like the blind leading the blind, to the ruin they 
were soon to consummate. The woes denounced on the 
" Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," by the voice of God's own 
Son in his Holy Temple, in the character of a Judge, and as a 
foretaste of the last judgment, stand in a striking contrast to 
the blessings uttered on humble disciples from the Mount, 
just as the crimes that called them down were the very oppo- 
site to the virtues there inculcated: saying and not doing,— 



10 Matt. xxii. 34-40 ; Mark xii. 28- I 21 Matt. xxii. 41-4G ; Mark xii. 35- 
34. | 37; Luke xx. 41-44. 

20 2 Sam. xxiii. 2 ; Ps. ex. 1 : comp. Acts ii. 34, 35 ; 1 Cor. xv. 25. 



A.D. 30. Scribes and Pharisees Denounced. 311 

binding grievous burdens for other men's shoulders, while 
they would not so much as touch them, — loving all marks of 
outward honor, even in the house where God only should be 
honored, and displaying all forms of ostentatious devotion, 
while their lives were full of rapacity and vice ; converting 
proselytes to the law, only to make them twofold more the 
children of hell than themselves, — frittering away the most 
solemn obligations, and at the same time extenuating the great- 
est crimes, by their false casuistry, — cleansing the outside 
of cup and dish, which reeked within with abomination that 
they swallowed as their daily food, " straining out the gnat, 
and swallowing the camel ; " — their hypocrisy could find no fit- 
ter image than the whited sepulchres, which they were so fond 
of garnishing without, while the mass of corruption was still 
festering within. Ay ! and the fact that their chiefest care 
was bestowed on the sepulchres of those prophets whom their 
fathers slew, suggested the climax of the denunciation. In 
their affected care to wash their hands of their fathers' deeds, 
they confessed themselves the children of those who slew the 
prophets, and were about to surpass their worst crimes by an 
act which should bring on them the guilt of all the blood shed 
under the Old Covenant. At last the utterance of wrath dies 
away in tones of the greatest pity, as he repeats his lamenta- 
tion over Jerusalem, and her doom of desolation till his com- 

22 

mg. 

Our Saviour's praise of the poor widow, who cast two mites 
— all she had — into the treasury, as having given more than 
all the sums the rich cast in from their abundance, is the last 
event of this day in the Temple, according to the first three 
Evangelists. 23 St. John, who passes over the other incidents 
of this and the preceding day, relates the coming of certain 
Greeks, who were introduced by Philip and Andrew to Jesus, 
and the declaration of our Lord that the hour was now come 
for the Son of Man to be glorified, and for the Father's name 
to be glorified by his death, followed by the approving voice 
of God from heaven. A brief conversation ensued, after 
which Jesus departed finally from the Temple, uttering his 
last words of promise to believers and of warning to those 
who rejected him; words addressed especially to many of 
the chief rulers, who believed in secret, but feared to confess 
him, " for they loved the praise of men more than the praise 
of God." 2 

22 Matt, xxiii. 13-39 ; Mark xii. 40 ; 23 Mark xii. 41-44 ; Luke xxi 1-4 
Lake xx. 47. ' 21 John xii. 20-50. 



312 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XI 

§ 6. But the greatest words of this eventful day Were utter- 
ed by our Lord to his disciples after he had left Jerusalem. 
As unconscious of what was passing in his mind as they 
seem to have been inattentive to his prophecy of its ruin, 
they had called his attention, as he departed from the Temple, 
to the magnificence of its buildings ; and he had replied that 
the time was coming when not one stone would be left upon 
another. The eastern valley was no sooner crossed, than 
they began to ask him when these things would happen, and 
what would be the signs of his coming and of the end of the 
world. The threefold form of this inquiry is an important 
guide to the momentous discourse which Jesus uttered as 
he sat upon the slope of Olivet, in full view of the Tem- 
ple. Here he is seen as the great Prophet of the new dispen- 
sation, briefly recounting the warnings long before uttered 
by Daniel, and yet to be more fully revealed through St. 
John. 

The first part of the discourse describes the taking of 
Jerusalem by Titus, the destruction of the Temple, and per- 
haps the fearful calamities which attended the final disper- 
sion of the Jews* by Hadrian. Equally clear is the reference 
of the last part, though the point of transition is very diffi- 
cult to fix, to the scenes preceding and attending the end of 
the world and the final judgment; and to these a practical 
application is given by the parables of the faithful and un- 
faithful Servant, and of the wise and foolish Virgins ; while 
the whole concludes with a plain description of the judgment 
day. 26 

§ 7. Meanwhile the rulers and chief priests, with the Scribes 
and elders of the people, met again at the house of Caiaphas, 
to consult how they could secure the prey Avhich seemed to 
have escaped them. The scheme of arresting him in the 
Temple, or of stirring up either the Roman government or 
the popular fury, had been foiled by the enthusiasm of the 
people and of his own prudence and triumph in every argu- 
ment ; and now they still feared that any attempt to appre- 
hend him on the feast-day would provoke an insurrection* 
The only course left was to seize him by treachery in his 
retirement ; and for this an opportunity was unexpectedly 
offered this very night. Judas Iscariot, whom Jesus had fore- 
known as the traitor from the first, came to the chief priests, 
and agreed to place his Master in their hands for the paltry 
bribe of thirty pieces of silver, the very sum fixed in the law 

25 Matt, xxiv., xxv. ; Mark xiii. ; Luke x\i 5-3fi 



A.D. 30. Treason of Judas Iscariot 313 

as compensation for the life of a slave. 28 Judas stands alone 
in sacred history as a man devoted by name, by the voice of 
the Lord himself, to perdition. How then did he obtain this 
awful pre-eminence ? Simply by love of the w T orld. He is 
the most marked type of those false disciples who joined Christ 
in the expectation of an earthly kingdom ; and when our Lord's 
repeated announcements of his sufferings and death showed, 
this to be a vain hope, he prepared to sell himself and his' 
Master to the rulers. He seems to have had that practical 
talent for business which gains confidence, and was made 
the treasurer of the little band ; and this position became a 
snare to him. In that character he raised his hypocritical ob- 
jection to the wastefulness of Mary's act of self-devotion, con- 
templating the securing the common purse for himself in the 
approaching end : — " This he said, not that he cared for the 
poor, but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare 
what was put therein." 27 The reply of Jesus, implying 
his knowledge that Judas cared as little for the poor as for 
him, seems to have set the seal to the traitor's purpose ; for 
Matthew and Mark place his communication to the chief 
priests immediately after the feast in Bethany. Whether 
that feast be rightly placed after the Sabbath (on Saturday 
evening), or on the Tuesday evening, it seems clear from the 
three Evangelists that the latter was the date of Judas's bar- 
gain, two days before the Passover. 28 

§ 8. Wednesday, the 13th of JVisan {April 4th). — Having, 
on the previous evening, told his disciples the time of his be- 
trayal, though without naming the traitor, our Lord remained 
at Bethany till the afternoon of Thursday, and a solemn si- 
lence rests over this period of his life. A sacred poet has 
ventured to fill up the interval : — 

"On thee and thine, thy warfare and thine end, 
Even in His hour of agony He thought, 
When, ere the final pang His soul should rend, 
The ransom'd spirits one by one were brought 
To His mind's eye — two silent nights and days 
In calmness for His far-seen hour He stays." 29 

At all events, the lesson is most impressive that, in the very 
last week of his ministry, after three days of incessant ac- 



26 Ex.xxi. 32 : comp. Zech. xi. 12, 
"13 ; Matt, xxvii. 9. We shall have to 
recur to the fulfillment of this proph- 
ecy, viewed as the completion of the 



27 John xii. 6. 

28 Matthew xxvi. 1, 2, 14-16; 
Mark xiv. 1, 2, 10, 11 ; Luke xxii. 
1-6. 



first stage in the establishment, of 29 Keble, Christian Year Monday 
Christ's kingdom (see ch. xix. § 20.) I before Easter. 
O 



314 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XL 

tivity, our Lord secured this unbroken interval of holy 
contemplation, as the fittest preparation for his Passion. 
The idea, that he may have spent the day in converse 
with his disciples, seems to be excluded by the silence of 
St. John, who is so full in his relation of the next day's 
scenes. 

§ 9. Thursday, the Uth of Msan (April 5th). — "Then 
came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must 
be killed." 30 The exact time appointed in the law for killing 
the Paschal Lamb was on the 14th of Nisan " between the 
evenings," or about sunset. As to the exact time, the Rabbis 
are divided : some interpreting the phrase of the interval be- 
tween sunset and the end of twilight ; others of the interval 
between the marked decline of the sun toward the horizon 
and the actual sunset. For many reasons the latter appears 
to be the correct view ; and it seems most probable that the 
lamb was killed soon after the evening sacrifice (the 9th hour), 
which, allowing for the time of roasting it, would bring the 
Paschal Supper to the usual hour of the evening meal, and so 
within the 14th day. The Feast of the Passover itself, in 
other words the Feast or Pays of unleavened bread, did not 
properly begin till after sunset and the Paschal meal, so that 
the 15th of Nisan was ike first day of the Feast. 

But, as all leaven was scrupulously removed about noon on 
the 14th, in preparation for the feast, it was not unnatural to 
call this " the day" or as Matthew and Mark have it, " the 
first day of unleavened bread." 31 So Josephus, in one place, 
makes the 14th of Nisan the first day of the feast, which he 
elsewhere fixes to the 15th; and he assigns eight days as its 
duration. 32 These considerations afford great help in decid- 
ing the important question — Was the supper which our Lord 
ate with his disciples on the Thursday evening the true Pas- 
chal Supper, or did the latter fall on the following evening, 
the same as that of his crucifixion? 33 The truth of the for- 
mer view could never have been questioned, had we possessed 



Luke xxii. 7. The " Passover " 
means here the Paschal Lamb. The 
importance of noticing this will ap- 
pear presently. 

31 Matt. xxvi. 17; Mark xiv. 12. 
Our translators have created unneces- 



33 The latter day of course involves 
the moving all the previous events of 
the week one day back among the 
days of the month, the days of the 
week remaining the same ; for that 
the Paschal Lamb was slain on the 



sary difficulty by inserting, in the j evening of the \ith of Nisan, and 
former passage, "the [feast of] un- ! that Christ was crucified on Friday, 
leavened bread." | ai-e fixed data. 

32 Joseph. Ant. ii. 15, § 1 ; iii. 10, § 5 : V' J: v 3, § 1. 



A.D. 30. 



Jesus Eats the Passover. 



315 



the first three Gospels only. They expressly call the Supper 
of the Thursday evening the Passover ; and even if St. John 
does not so call it, no inference can be drawn from his si- 
lence, any more than from his not mentioning the institution 
of the Lord's Supper, considering the supplementary nature 
of his Gospel. 34 

There are, however, passages in St. John's narrative of our 
Saviour's Passion, which seem to suggest the inference thao 
the Passover was yet to be eaten on the Friday evening ; but 
all these passages admit of another explanation. 35 The beau- 
tiful idea, of making the time when " Christ our Passover 
was slain for us" coincide with the sacrifice of the Paschal 
Lamb, has influenced many a devout mind ; but every such 
temptation to tamper with historic truth, besides being inad- 
missible by the laws of evidence, generally involves the retri- 
bution of losing some more valuable point. The true view 
seems to be that our Lord observed this, the greatest sacri- 
fice of the Old Covenant, before he offered the one great sac- 
rifice of the NeAV ; and by so doing he exactly fulfilled the 
type. For the Passover was the sign of God's merciful for- 
bearance to his people : their actual deliverance from Egypt, 
the type of salvation by Christ, took place on the following 
day. The case has a beautiful analogy to that of the Sab- 
bath. Our Lord rested in the grave on the Jewish Sabbath, 
before he instituted, by his resurrection, the New Sabbath 
of holy joy and active benevolence — the Lord's Day. In 
both cases the " oldness of the letter" was duly fulfilled, 
before it was succeeded by " the newness of the spirit." 
Our Lord first united with the Jews, his brethren after the 
flesh, in observing the form of the old sacrifice ; and then, 
having done with old things, he took the first step in mak- 
ing all things new, by offering himself as the true sacrifice, 
" the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." 
These preliminary difficulties being removed, so as we trust 
to throw a clearer light on the spirit of this, the most mo- 
mentous event in the sacred history, we return to the nar- 
rative. 

As the day advanced, the disciples, well aware of the dan- 
ger of a return to the city, asked the Master where they 
should prepare the Passover. He sent Peter and John into 



34 We by no means admit, however, 
that this supper is not intended in 
John xiii. 1. See below. 

35 For the detailed argument, sec 



Notes and Illustrations (B), in which 
is also given an account of the feast, 
so far as is necessary to explain oui 
Lord's Supper. 



316 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XL 

the city to a certain man, whom they were to recognize by a 
sign, and who, at the simple intimation of the Lord's will, 
showed them a large upper room, furnished and in proper or- 
der, where they prepared the feast. Entering the city pri- 
vately, while the people were similarly engaged in their sev- 
eral households, Jesus sat down with the twelve apostles to 
eat the Passover before sunset. 

§ 10. The Evening and Night of Thursday, April 5th: 
the 14th-15th Nisan. 35 * — Following the usual order of the 
feast, after first assuring the disciples of the ardent desire he 
had felt to eat with them this his last Passover on earth, and 
promising its fulfillment in God's Kingdom, he took the first 
of the four cups of wine mixed with water, which were drunk 
at the feast, and having given thanks, he bade them divide it 
among themselves, for that he would not drink wine till the 
Kingdom of God should come. 30 For this refusal of the cup, 
which he repeated later in the feast, there seems to have 
been both a physical and a ceremonial reason. In the same 
spirit in which he refused the opiate, which was commonly 
offered before the crucifixion, he would not incur either the 
danger or the suspicion of his mind being clouded with wine ; 
and he abstained also as the officiating priest, about to lay 
down his own life in sacrifice. 

Even as the cup was passing round, the disciples again 
raised the old question, which of them should be the greatest 
in that kingdom of which he had spoken. He decided the 
controversy by marking the place of the faithful servant" as 
that of the highest honor, according to his own example ; and 
promised an ample recompense for their share in his humili- 
ation. 37 Then, rising from the table, before beginning to eat 
the supper, 38 he at once enforced the lesson, and gave them 
a proof of his love enduring to the end, by girding himself 
with a towel and washing their feet, the most humble of all 
menial services. Viewing it in this light, Peter, with his 
wonted ardor, refused at first ; but, when Jesus told him that 

354 It is impossible here to keep ex- | from old to new things. It was not 
actly to the Jewish reckoning of the i till night-fall that Jesus went forth 
days, as there is nothing in the nar- I with his disciples to Gethsemane. 



rative to determine the precise mo- 
ment of sunset. We know that the 
Paschal Lamb was slain before the 
14th of Nisan closed ; but so near 
sunset, that the "Lord's Supper" 
was probably instituted after the di- 
viding point was passed — another in- 
dication, perhaps, of the transition 



-Matt. xxvi. 17-20; Mark xiv. 
12-17; Luke xxii. 7-14. 

37 Luke xxii. 24-30. 

38 This we take to be the true mean- 
ing of John xiii. 1. The phrase, 
"supper being ended," in v. 2, is 
based on the inferior reading yevo/U' 
vov for yivof-dvuv. 



A.D. 30. Institution of the Lord's Supper. 31? 

this washing was a sign of union to Him, he exclaimed, 
" Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." 
Our Lord's reply taught the distinction between the washing 
which renews the nature and that which needs daily repeti- 
tion to cleanse from daily pollution, and he added,. " Ye are 
clean, but not all ; " for Judas had been a partaker of the 
rite. 39 

Resuming his garments, Jesus discoursed further of the ex- 
ample he had now given, and once more hinted at the traitor. 
For now this bitter sorrow had taken full possession of his 
mind ; and their sitting down again to the feast was followed 
by the affecting scene of his plainly declaring that the traitor 
was one of them. In their sorrow and confusion they ask, 
" Lord, is it I ? Is it I ?" Judas asks the same question, 
lest he should seem guilty, but he alone hears the answer, 
" Thou hast said it." Peter now urges John, who reclined 
next Jesus at supper, with his head upon His bosom, to beg 
the Master to tell them who should be the traitor ; and to his 
request Jesus replies, " He it is to whom I shall give a sop, 
when I have dipped it." 40 It seems that John had not time to 
communicate the answer to the other disciples ; for when the 
sign was followed by the command, given with all the dignity 
of self-sacrifice, " What thou doest, do quickly," they supposed 
it only to be some commission given to Judas as the purse- 
bearer, and they were still, to say the least, in doubt about the 
traitor. So he went forth to concert his measures with the 
rulers, under cover of the night, which had now set in. 

Then Christ announced to those who were left, that the 
hour was come for the Son of Man to be glorified, and for God 
to be glorified in him ; that he was going before them on a 
path by which they should soon follow him, but that they 
were not yet ready ; and meanwhile he gave them the new 
commandment, that they should love one another. The im- 
patient zeal of Peter rebelled at the thought of not following 
his Master now ; and his self -deceiving readiness to lay dowm 
his life for Christ's sake was rebuked by the prediction, that 
he would deny Him thrice on that very night before the crow- 
ing of the cock ; while the other disciples, who might be be- 
ginning to think themselves above the weakness of Peter 
as well as the treachery of Judas, were warned that they 
too would abandon Him that night and be scattered abroad ; 



"^ See especially v. 2. f portion of the bitter herbs,- dipped into 

40 Matt. xxvi. 2a; John xiii. 26. the sauce, called charoseth, as to whicfc 
The 6op or morsel (ipbjulov) was a j see p. 341. 



518 



The Passion of Oar Lord. 



Chap. XI. 



but he appointed to meet them in Galilee after his resurrec 
tion. 41 

§ 11. Either just before or just after this scene, as the 
supper wa^ drawing to an end, Christ took a loaf of the un- 
leavened bread, and having given thanks, he broke it and 
gave it them to eat, as the emblem of his body, broken for 
men. Then, the supper being ended, he took a cup, the third 
of those usually partaken of, and divided it in like manner 
among them, as the pledge of the New Covenant in his blood, 
shed for the remission of sins. Thus he instituted the Lord's 
Supper, to be observed to all future time, in remembrance of 
him. 42 

Between the end of the meal and the hymns of praise which 
followed it, there was an interval of most solemn and delight- 
ful converse, in which the disciples, bowed down with sorrow 
at what they had heard, were assured that he would not 
leave them comfortless, though hated and persecuted by the 
world, but he would come again to take them to the mansions 
he now went to prepare for them ; and that meanwhile they 
would be divinely comforted, enlightened, and inspired for 
their work by the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit of truth. Those 
exquisite chapters of St. John which contain this discourse 
conclude with that most solemn and affecting of all the utter- 
ances of human language, our Lord's intercessory prayer in 
presence of his disciples. 48 The momentous scenes trans- 
acted in that upper chamber ended with the singing of a hymn, 
probably the " Great Hallel " (Psalm cxv.-cxviii.) which con- 
cluded the ceremony, and then they went out together to the 
first scene of suffering on the Mount of Olives. 44 L l ' ff"*" ' 

§ 12. Going down into the ravine which divides Jerusa- 
lem from the Mount, they crossed the brook Kedron, and en- 
tered the Garden of Gethsemane (the Oil Press). A part of 
the garden still exists between the brook and the foot of the 
Mount, marked by a few olive-trees, which are old enough to 
have grown there since our Saviour's time. 45 Here Jesus 
took apart the same three disciples, Peter, James, and John, 



41 John xiii. 36-38 ; Matt. xxvi. 31- 
35 ; Mark xiv. 27-31. It is impossi- 
ble, within our limits, to discuss all 
the minute questions relating to the 
order of the different Evangelists. 
They are ably treated in Dr. Robin- 
son's Harmony. 

42 Matt. xxvi. 26-29 ; Mark xiv. 
22-25 ; Luke xxii. 19, 20 ; 1 Cor. xi. 
23-25. 



43 John xiv.-xvii. The break at 
xiv. 31 is only apparent. It indicates 
the first movement toward departure ; 
but the discourse is resumed and con- 
eluded before thev leave the house. 

44 Matt. xxvi. 30 ; Mark xiv. 26 ; 
Luke xxii. 39. 

45 The present garden is 50 paces 
square. That it was much larger is 
clear from Luke xxii. 41. There 



A D. 30. Arrest of Jesus at Geihsemane. 319 

who had seen his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, to be 
near him during that last agony of temptation, which darkened 
his soul and convulsed his frame. Leaving them with the 
charge to watch, for he knew that the traitor was approach- 
ing, he retired about a stone' s-throw farther, to pray, while 
his spirit was overwhelmed with terror as he contemplated 
the sins of mankind that were now laid upon him. 46 His hu- 
man nature shrank from the burden,which his will to save 
mankind still resolved to bear. In agonizing prayer to his 
Father, he contemplates for a moment some possible alterna- 
tive : — " Abba ! Father ! all things are possible unto thee ! " — 
in the resources of divine omnipotence there might be some 
other method of saving man — "If it be possible, if thou be 
willing, take away this cup from me " — in which the torture 
of the scourge and the cross was the least bitter ingredient ; 
but he leaves all to his Father's will ; " nevertheless, not my 
will, but thine be done ! " In no scene of our Lord's life do 
we behold more clearly the union of his perfect humanity 
with his divinity. If, at the first view, the former element 
seems the more conspicuous, we must remember that this was 
the very crisis of his humiliation, in which, laying aside his di- 
vine attributes, " he humbled himself and became obedient to 
death," bowing down before the Father, as the representative 
of sinful man. But the very power to do this, the close com- 
munion with his Father concerning his will and counsels, and 
the perfect triumph of resignation over all human weakness, 
are proofs of his true deity. Encouraged by his example, and 
strengthened by his Holy Spirit, many a follower of Christ 
has drunk the cup of suffering and self-denial because it was 
God's will; but for them that cup has never been mixed with 
the bitterness of God's wrath. In this fearful conflict Jesus 
was not left alone. As in his first great temptation, an angel 
from heaven strengthened him. But his last earthly comfort 
failed ; for, when he came to his disciples, he found them 
sleeping ! The well-deserved rebuke, directed especially to 
Peter, who had boasted of his power to follow his Master 
even to death — " What, could ye not watch with me one hour? 
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation ! " — is soft- 
ened by the compassionate excuse, " The spirit indeed is will 
ing, but the flesh is weak ! " A second and third time he de- 
parts to reiterate the same prayer, and returns to find them 

are 8 trees, the age of which has been 1 4C " He began to be sore amazed 
reckoned at 2000 years. See further, and to be very heavy,"- Mark xiv, 
p. 338. ! 33. 



320 



The Passion of Our Lord. 



Chap. XL 



sunk in sleep so profound that they knew not what to answer 
him. But the third time he rouses them by announcing the 
danger against which they should have watched, and says, 
with an irony which lets them know that the opportunity was 
now past for rendering the last service he had asked of 
them : — " Sleep on now, and take your rest : it is enough, 
the hour is come ; behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into 
the hands of sinners ! " And now that they are fully awake, 
he adds, " Rise up, let us go ; lo, he that betrayeth me is at 
hand." 47 

§ 13. At the same moment, torches were seen among the 
trees, and a multitude appeared, consisting of officers of the 
Temple, and others, hastily armed with swords and staves, 
sent by the chief priests under the guidance of the traitor Ju- 
das ; for he well knew the garden, where he had spent many 
an hour with Jesus. The Lord gave himself into their hands 
in such a manner as to prove how entirely the surrender was 
his own act. Twice they recoiled from his presence and fell 
to the ground, before Judas took courage to give the signal 
to seize him, by the traitor's kiss. At the sight of the officers 
binding his master, Peter drew his sword, one of the only two 
that the disciples had, and struck oif the right ear of one of 
the high-priest's servants. 48 Christ rebuked his untimely zeal, 
in obtruding such puny help upon Him who could have com- 
manded the heavenly hosts, and provoking violence from the 
captors ; at the same time healing the servant's ear. Then, 
turning to the officers, he remonstrated against their show of 
force as if he were a thief, when they might have taken him 
any day as he was teaching in the Temple. To both parties 
he explained that this hour of triumph was granted to them 
and to the powers of darkness, in order that the Scriptures 
might be fulfilled. 

The disciples were afraid to share or even watch his fate, 
as he had foretold. " They all forsook him, and fled." The 
concern of Peter to make good his boast, and the love of 
John, induced them alone of all the rest to follow at a safe 
distance. There was indeed one young man, an attendant, it 
seems, on Jesus or one of the Apostles, who ventured to fol- 
low Christ ; 49 but, when he was seized by his only garment, 



47 Matt. xxvi. 36-46 ; Mark xiv. 
32-42 ; Luke xxii. 39-46. Some in- 
terpret the words interrogatively : 
" Are you still asleep and taking your 
rest ? You have indulged in it long 
enough,*' etc. 



48 St. John alone names Peter and 
the servant ; an indication of the late 
date of his Gospel, when the names 
could be given with safety. 

49 Mark xiv. 51, 52. 



A.D. 30. Peter s Denial. 321 

he fled, leaving it in the captor's hand. The particular men- 
tion of this incident by Mark only, has given rise to the con- 
jecture that it refers to himself. 

The divine prisoner was led first to the house of Annas, the 
father-in-law of the high-priest, Caiaphas ; perhaps to avoid 
committing the rulers publicly, till it was decided whether 
they would risk a public trial. But there seems now to have 
been no wish to draw back ; and Annas sent him bound to 
Caiaphas, who had already ojDenly advised his death. 50 

Peter - and John still followed at a distance ; but John, 
having some acquaintance with the high-priest, not only ven- 
tured himself into the palace, but spoke to the female servant 
at the door, who let in Peter. To understand what ensued, 
the structure of an oriental house should be remembered. 
The gate gives entrance to an open court-yard, and it was in 
the middle of this court that the servants and officers made a 
fire to keep off the chiliness of a spring night. Jesus was led 
into one of the chambers opening into the court, whence ho 
could see what passed round the fire. Where John was we 
are not told ; but it seems that, being known to the servants, 
he was left unmolested, and so became an eye-witness of 
what followed to the very end ; and hence the vast impor- 
tance which is assigned to his testimony. 

Peter, with characteristic rashness, ventured into the circle 
round the fire, which was soon joined by the damsel who had 
given him admittance. She looked at Peter, and recognized 
him as the disciple of Jesus ; but he rudely denied it. 
Alarmed and conscience-stricken, he retired to the porch, just 
in time to hear the first warning note of cock-crow. Soon 
after, another maid pointed him out to the by-standers, say- 
ing, "He was also with Jesus of Nazareth ; " and Peter's 
fears only led him to a more resolute denial. About an hour 
later, the evidence against him was completed by a kinsman 
of Malchus, the servant whose ear he had cut off. This man 
declared that he had seen him in the garden, Peter's contin- 
ued denials only furnished fresh proofs to the by-standers by 
means of his Galilean dialect ; and, thus convicted, he added 
oaths and curses to the protestation, " I know not the man." 
At that moment the cock crew again ; Jesus turned and look 
ed on Peter from the room where he was waiting in bonds ; 
and Peter went out and wept bitterly. 51 

50 This point is expressly referred I xiv. 43-54, 66-72; Luke xxii. 47-62 •> 
to by St. John, xviii. 14. " John xviii. 1-18, 25-27. We do not 

51 Matt. xxvi. 47-58, 69, 75 ; Mark I enter on the minor questions as to 

O 2 



322 



The Passion of Our Lord. 



Chap. XL 



Such was the end of Peter's readiness to lay down his life 
for his Master's sake. More than thirty years later, he was 
permitted to follow, as Christ had promised him, in the path 
of martyrdom ; but now Jesus had to tread that path alone, 
as his sacrifice alone could atone for sin. His demeanor 
throughout his trials, first before the Sanhedrim, and then be- 
fore Pilate, is to be viewed in a threefold aspect — as a man 
falsely accused, as a religious teacher called to defend the 
truth of his doctrine, and as the Son of God, arraigned in his 
humiliation before those who would in the last day stand at 
his judgment seat. He knew how the trial would end, nay, 
how it must end, in order that the very purpose of his mis- 
sion might not fail ; but, while he scorns, in dignified silence, 
to urge the illegality of the procedure and the weakness of 
the evidence, before judges who had prejudged the case, 
neither does he utter a word of unseemly bravado or provo- 
cation. " In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away, 
yet he opened not his mouth ! " 

The first interrogation seems to have been made by the 
high-priest just after Peter's first denial, preparatory to the 
meeting of the Sanhedrim at dawn. " The high-priest asked 
Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine." 52 The former 
question may have been designed to ascertain, before sum- 
moning the Sanhedrim, how far the new leaven had spread 
among its members ; 53 but Jesus betrayed no man. To the 
other question he only replied by appealing to the evidence 
of those who had been his hearers, and upon this an officer 
struck him for contempt of the high-priest. 54 Caiaphas seems 
then to have retired to summon the Sanhedrim ; and Peter's 
second and third denials occurred in the mean time. 

§ 14. Good Friday, still the 15th of JVisan, {April 6th). — 
At dawn of day the council met, and Jesus was arraigned be- 
fore them. 55 Their first object was to condemn him as a false 
prophet and blasphemer, crimes punishable by the Mosaic law 
with death. We shall presently see how they proposed to 



the order of the three denials, which 
again illustrate that unity amid di- 
versity which characterizes faithful 
witnesses. The double crowing of 
the cock, mentioned only by St. 
Mark, is consistent with every-day ex- 
perience, and forms a valuable note 
of time ; for the cock always crows 
soon after midnight, as well as at the 
break of day. 
52 John xviii. 19. 



53 See, besides the case of Nicode- 
mus, John xii. 42. 

54 John xviii. 19-24. Luke xxii. 
63-65, though parallel in time, seems 
rather to correspond to Matt. xxvi. 
17-68 an-d Mark xiv. 64, 65. But 
the insolent menials of the high- 
priest are not unlikely to have in- 
dulged in their brutal outrages in the 
interval of waiting for the Sanhedrim 

55 Luke xxii. 66. 



A.D. 30. Jesus before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrim. 323 

execute the sentence. The law required the testimony of two 
witnesses ; and several witnesses were suborned, while others 
seem to have come forward willingly to court the powers that 
were in the ascendant ; but their testimony was too evident- 
ly false to be admitted. When at last two were found to 
swear to the same point, and to pervert the words he had 
used about the destruction and resurrection of the temple of 
his body, into a threat that he would destroy the Temple, they* 
were still at variance with one another. 56 

To all this evidence Jesus made no reply, as indeed none 
was necessary ; till the high-priest reproached him for his si- 
lence, and adjured him by the living God to say whether he 
was the Christ, the Son of God. He might have been the 
Messiah, and yet not have claimed the divinity implied in the 
latter title. But he plainly said I AM, and warned them of 
the time when they should see him sitting in his power at 
the right hand of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven. 
This was enough. Rending his clothes — the wonted sign of 
distress and horror — the high-priest appealed to the council, 
who at once condemned Jesus for blasphemy, while the offi- 
cers covered his face, spat on him, and buffeted him with 
blows, mocking his prophetic powers by asking him to tell 
who struck him, and adding many other blasphemies." 

§ 15. The next step, according to the law of Moses, would 
have been to have led him without the city and stoned him 
to death. But the subjection of Jews to Rome had deprived 
even their highest court of the power of life and death ; and, 
instead of venturing to offend the procurator, they needed all 
his support, in case of a rising of the people. So they took a 
course which secured the fulfillment of Christ's own sayings 
respecting the manner of his death. It became the act of 
Pilate, with the approval of Herod ; thus uniting with the 
ecclesiastical rulers of the Jews their own civil authority and 
the supreme power of Rome — a concurrence of the represent- 
atives of all the world 58 — and securing the infliction of that 



66 Matt. xxii. 59-63 ; Mark xiv. , 57 Matt. xxvi. 63-68 ; Mark xiv. 
55-61. The account seems to imply 61-65 ; Luke xxii. 67-71, and 63-65: 
some sort of cross-examination, which comp. Is. 1. 6, liii. 7. The av dirac 
we may suppose to have been con- (" thou hast spoken the truth ") of 
ducted by those who still maintained Matthew is a Greek idiom of not 
the sense of fairness, of which Gam a- less emphatic assent than the tyu> 
liel afterward gave an example, if, as el/xt of Mark. Both are united in the 
seems most probable, Nicodemus and phrase of Luke, vfitig Xsytre on tyd 
the other secret friends of Christ were tiju. 
afraid, to interfere. i 5a Comp. Ps. ii. 



324 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XI 

form of death, the most ignominious as well as painful, which 
could best mark God's wrath against sin, &Q and which, as es- 
pecially the punishment of a slave, showed the Saviour de- 
scending to the lowest depths of humiliation, as a proof that 
he would save the most degraded. 

They led him to the Prwtor'mm™ where the Roman proc- 
urator, Pontius Pilate, had just taken his seat early in the 
morning ; but, as they could not enter a court inaugurated by 
heathen sacrifices without incurring a pollution that would 
have prevented their keeping the feast, 61 Pilate came out to 
ask them the charge on which they delivered up the prisoner. 
They only replied that he was a malefactor ; and Pilate gave 
them leave to deal with him according to their law. But they 
declined the responsibility, and charged him with the politi- 
cal offense of forbidding the people to pay tribute to Caesar 
(the very trap into which they had vainly tried to draw him), 
and making himself a king, a claim which they alone had de- 
sired him to make in a form hostile to the emperor. Armed 
with this definite charge, and of course knowing nothing of a 
spiritual kingdom, Pilate went back to the Praetorium and 
began his examination by asking, " Art thou King of the 
Jews?" Jesus replied that his kingdom was not of this 
world, as the peaceful conduct of his disciples proved ; and, 
when further pressed with the question, " Art thou a king 
then ?" — he explained his kingdom to consist in bearing wit- 
ness to the truth, and claimed the allegiance of every one 
who was himself true. To this appeal, Pilate made the often 
quoted rejoinder, "What is truth?" — a question perhaps ex- 
pressing the contempt of a Roman for speculation on moral 
subjects, but not uttered in the "jesting" spirit ascribed to it 
by Bacon. It is true that he " stayed not for a reply," and he 
left the Prgetorium, to tell the Jews that he found no fault in 
the accused. He seems to have brought Jesus out with the 
intention of dismissing him ; but the priests and elders began 

69 The best expositors, both ancient J of the city was selected for the pur- 
and modern, have found also in the pose. The Pra3torium of Pilate was 
lingering death of the cross a type of either the palace of Herod, or the 
the slow extinction of that sinful na- [ citadel called Antonia, close to the 



ture in the Christian, which St. Paul 
so often represents. 

00 The Prsetorium, translated in the 
A.V. the "hall of judgment " (John 



Temple. Respecting Pontius Pilate, 
see chap. v. pp. 107, 108. 

61 John xviii. 28. The phrase " eat 
the passover " must here be taken in 



xviii. 28), was the head-quarters of|a general sense for the feast of un-< 
the Koman military governor, wher- 1 leavened bread ; unless it refers to thd 
ever he happened to bv. In time of ; chagiyah, or voluntary thank -offer 
peace some one of the best buildings ■ ing. 



A.D. 30. 



Jesus before Pilate. 



325 



to upbraid him with new charges, declaring that he had stirred 
up all the people from Galilee to Jerusalem, to which he made 
no reply. 62 

Catching at the mention of Galilee as the chief scene of his 
seditious teaching, Pilate resolved to send him to Herod An- 
tipas, who had come up to Jerusalem to the Passover — a 
practice by which he was accustomed to conciliate the Jews. 6 * 
Herod rejoiced at obtaining the interview which he had long 
sought in vain, and put many questions to Jesus, in the hope 
of his working some miracle. Provoked, however, at receiv- 
ing no answer, and seeing the vehemence of Christ's accusers, 
Herod with his soldiers made a mockery of his regal claims, 
and sent him back to Pilate arrayed in the imperial purple. 
The occasion was seized for a reconciliation between the king 
and the procurator, who had been long at variance, and the 
words of David were fulfilled, " The kings of the earth set 
themselves, and the rulers took counsel together, against the 
Lord and against his anointed." G4 

Finding himself compelled to decide the case, Pilate tried 
an appeal to the generous feelings of the people. It was a 
customary act of grace, in honor of the Passover, for the Ro- 
man governor to release some prisoner, whom the people chose. 
Knowing that the charge against Jesus sprang from the envy 
of the priests, and that the people had shown such enthusi- 
asm for Christ, he proposed to release him whom they had so 
lately hailed as their King. But the plan was defeated by a 
cunning manoeuvre of the priests. There was another prison- 
er, named Barabbas, a murderer and robber, and the leader 
of one of those insurrections against the Roman government, 
which were frequent during the later days of Judaea. The 
feelings of the people were easily inflamed on behalf of this 
patriot brigand; and they probably saw by this time that 
Jesus was not about to fulfill their hopes of a miraculous res- 
toration of David's kingdom. Pilate awaited their decision 
with an anxiety the more intense, because while sitting on the 
tribunal he received a warning message from his wife, who 
had just awakened from a harassing dream about the " just 
man." He repeated the question, " Which of the two shall I 
release to you ?" and they replied, " Not this man, but Ba- 
rabbas !" Again he tried to bring them to reason, and to re- 
vive their interest in Christ, by asking, " What will ye then 



62 Matt, xxvii. 1, 2, 11, 14; Mark 
xv. 1-5 ; Lukexxiii. 1-5; John xviii. 
28-38 : comp. Is. liii. 7. 



63 Comp. chap. v. § 3. 

64 Luke xxiii. 4-12 ; Ps. ii. 1, 2 
comp. Acts iv. 25, 26. 



326 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XI 

that I shall do to him tchom ye call the King of the Jews ?* 
The answer was ready, " Crucify him" Still Pilate made a 
third appeal — " Why, what evil hath he done ?" and, again 
declaring that he found no fault in him, he proposed the 
strange compromise, to scourge him and let him go ! But by 
this time the people, always ready for sedition, and continual- 
ly prompted by the priests, were roused by the show of oppo- 
sition to one of those tumults which were sure to bring dis= 
grace on a Roman governor. The loud cries of " Crucify 
him !" prevailed over reason and conscience ; and Pilate re- 
leased Barabbas, and yielded up Jesus to their will. 

But first a ceremony was enacted between the governor 
and the Jews, vain on his part, but of awful significance on 
theirs ! Pilate washed his hands before the people, protesting 
" I am innocent of the blood of this just person : see ye to 
it ;" and they accepted the tremendous responsibility : — " His 
blood be on us and on our children." 65 That responsibility 
they were afterward as eager to disclaim ; 66 but the curse of 
his innocent blood still works upon their scattered race, only 
to be expiated when their faith " brings this man's blood upon 
them" as an atonement. 

Jesus was now handed over to the Roman soldiers, whose 
brutality was inflamed with contempt for the peasant king of 
the despised Jews. To the torture of the scourging which 
preceded crucifixion were added the mockery of the crown of 
thorns, 67 the purple robe, and the reed for a sceptre, w T hile 
the soldiers mingled their parody of the forms of homage 
with blows and spitting in his face. 

The scene seems to have suggested to Pilate one more 
effort to save Jesus, in which, if unsuccessful, he would at 
least indulge his levity by an insult to the Jews. As a proof 



65 Matt, xxvii. 15-26; Mark xv. phrase would have been i'£ cucavOqc. 
6-15 ; Luke xxiii. 13-25 ; John xviii. ! Obviously some small flexile thorny 
39,40. j shrub is meant; perhaps cappares 

66 Acts v. 28. spinosce. Hasselquist (Travels, p. 260) 

67 Zrecpavog 1% aicavOwv, Matt, says that the thorn used was the Ara- 
xxvii. 29. The Rhamnus or Spina bian Nabk. "It was very suitable 
Christi, although abundant in the for their purpose, as it has many sharp 
neighborhood of Jerusalem, can not thorns which inflict painful wounds ; 
be the plant intended, because its and its flexible, pliant, and round 
thorns are so strong and large that it branches might easily be plaited in 
could not have been woven (Tr\i%,av- the form of a crown." It also re- 
7-£c) into a wreath. The large-leaved sembles the rich dark green of the 
acanthus (bear's foot) is totally unsuit- triumphal ivy-wreath, which would 
ed for the purpose. Had the acacia give additional pungency to its iron 
been intended, as some suppose, the ; ical purpose. 






A.D. 30, Pilate Sentences Christ. 327 

that he believed him innocent, he brought him out and showed 
him invested with the insignia of royalty! But the insult 
excited rage and not compassion, and the cry was again, 
" Crucify him !" " Take ye him and crucify him : for I find 
no fault in him."' rejoined Pilate, knowing that they dared 
not take him at his word ; while they cried that he deserved 
death according to their law, because he made himself the 
Son of God. 

Pilate's reluctance had for some time shown a mixture of 
superstitious fear, which these words raised to the highest 
pitch. Leading Jesus back into the hall, he asked him, 
" Whence art thou ?" but he received no answer. When 
he urged the question by speaking of his power to crucify or 
to release him, Jesus told him that he could have no power at 
all over him unless it were given him from above, and with 
divine authority pronounced the guilt of his betrayers the 
greater. Pilate was now determined, if possible, to release 
him ; but the Jews knew how to work upon a fear more pres- 
ent to him than that of the last judgment: — "If thou let 
this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend." The dread of be- 
ing denounced to Tiberius for acquitting an usurper was de- 
cisive to his weak and selfish spirit. Leaving the Pra?torium, 
and planting the Senna or judgment-seat in the open place 
called G-abhatha (the pavement) ," in full view of the Temple 
and the people, Pilate passed sentence on Him whom he had 
so often declared innocent, and of whose right to be his judge 
he was not unaware. Still venting the reproaches of his con- 
science in insults on his instigators, he again said to the Jews, 
" Behold your King \ n M Away with him ! crucify him I" was 
still the answer'. And when he asked, " Shall I crucify your 
King?" — the chief priests, in their rage, abjured the inde- 
pendence which was the strongest passion of a Jew, " We have 
no king but Csesar." 69 

The providence of God took them at their word, when 
their last efforts for freedom ended in their dispersion over 
all the world. Xo less signal was the retribution which befell 
the other actors in this greatest crime of the world's history. 
The unjust judge, whose reluctance was the measure of his 

e - John xix. 13. This was a paved which the bema was placed, perhaps 

platform on the ridge of the rock some such work as that which we are 

between the castle of Antonia and told by Suetonius (Ccesar, -46) Julius 

the western corner of the Temple. Caesar was accustomed to carry with 

It has been supposed by some that him on his expeditions, 

the "pavement'' (XiQug-owtov) was M Matt, xxvii. 26-30; Mark xv 

some mosaic or tessellated work, upon 15-19 ; John xix. 1-lfi. 



328 



The Passion of Our Lord. 



Chap. XI 



conscious guilt, soon incurred the very displeasure the fear oi 
which urged him to the crime, and, like Judas, put an end to 
his own life. 70 There was no delay in the fate of the arch-trai- 
tor himself. Remorse seized him as soon as he saw that Jesus 
was condemned, an end which he had probably expected to 
see averted by the people or the governor, so that he might 
have enjoyed the reward of his treason, without its involving 
his Master's death. He now carried back the thirty pieces 
of silver to the chief priests, and confessed his sin, hoping 
perhaps that good might yet be done by this assertion of 
Christ's innocence. Their only answer was to throw the re- 
sponsibility upon him ; and, casting down the money on the 
pavement of the Temple, he went and hanged himself. His 
death was made more horrible to all the inhabitants of Jeru- 
salem by the circumstance recorded by St. Luke in the Acts y 
but most awful of all is the sentence which was more than 
once pronounced upon him by the Lord, and with which Peter 
dismisses his name from the Apostles' list, " from which Ju- 
das by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place" 
With a scrupulousness which is the most striking example of 
religious formalism glossing over moral deformity, the chief 
priests decided that the thirty silver pieces, as the price of 
blood, must not be put back into the treasury, so they pur- 
chased with them the potter's field without the city, as a buri- 
al place for strangers, thereby fulfilling to the very letter a 
prophecy of Zechariah. 71 It seems to be implied in the narra- 
tive that the field thus purchased was also the place where 
Judas committed suicide, and the double memorial of the 
scene and the price of blood was preserved by its name, Acel- 
dama (the field of blood).™ 



70 See chap. v. p. 109. 

71 Zcch. xi. 12, foil. The reading 
"Jeremiah," in Matt, xxvii. 9, is 
probably a gloss. There is evidence, 
both in MSS. and versions, especially 
the very ancient Syriac, that "the 
prophet " alone was the original read- 
ing. 

72 Matt, xxvii. 3-10; Acts i. 18, 
19. It is hardly necessary to point 
out that "purchased" in the latter 
passage is an instance of a common 
figure of speech, implying indirect 
agency. The "field of blood" is 
now shown on the steep southern face 
of the valley or ravine of Hinnom, 
near its eastern end, on a narrow 



I plateau, more than half-way up the 
i hill-side. Its modern name is Hak 
ed-damm. It is separated by no en- 
closure ; a few venerable olive-trees 
occupy part of it, and the rest is cov- 
ered by a ruined square edifice — half 
built, half excavated — which, perhaps 
originally a church, was in Maun- 
d veil's time in use as a charnel-house. 
It was believed in the Middle Ages 
that the soil of this place had the 
power of very rapidly consuming 
bodies buried in it, and in conse- 
quence either of this or of the sanctity 
of the spot, great quantities of the 
earth were taken away ; among others 
by the Pisnn Crusaders in 1218 for 



A.D. 30. 



Tlve, Crucifixion. 



329 



§ 16. That great sacrifice was meanwhile accomplished, 
which no uninspired pen would dare to relate, were it not neces- 
sary to gather up in one view, and in some points to explain, the 
several statements of the Evangelists. The points that re- 
quire notice are, the manner and place and time of the execu- 
tion, the incidents that marked it, and the sayings which our 
Saviour uttered from the cross. 73 It was a Roman execution, 
conducted in the usual forms of crucifixion, but with some 
important variations. The scourging had already been inflict- 
ed, and Jesus* was now clothed by the soldiers with his own 
garments, of which more presently, in place of the purple robe 
of mock royalty, and was led forth from the city to the place 
of public execution. This was necessarily without the city, 
but it was evidently near to one of the gates, and beside a 
public road. Such is the sum of our knowledge, and there is 
no mention of its being on a hill. Its Hebrew name, Golgo- 
tha (the place of a skull), is interpreted by all four Evangel- 
ists by the equivalent Greek word upaviov, which is duly ren- 
dered in the Vulgate, in each case, calvaria ; but, with that 
capricious variety which is one of its chief blots, our Version 
gives us only in St. Luke the word Calvary ', which has so 
long been the key-note of the most sacred associations of 
thought and feeling. 74 

One ignominious feature of crucifixion, the criminal's carry- 
ing his own cross to the place of execution, was not omitted in 
the case of Jesus, as we learn from St. John ; but the other 
three Evangelists state that the soldiers laid the burden upon 
one Simon, a Cyrenian, who happened to be coming into Jeru- 
salem from the country. The obvious reconciliation is that 
so often presented to the eye by great painters, that our 
Saviour, exhausted by his previous agony, sunk beneath the 
weight, which no one else would defile himself by lifting. 
The enforced service seems to have brought upon Simon the 
blessing pronounced by Christ on those who, in a spiritual 
sense, take up the cross and follow him ; for St. Mark speaks 
of Simon and his sons, Alexander and Rufus, as persons well 



tlieir Campo Santo at Pisa, and by the 
Empress Helena for that at Rome. 
Besides the charnel-house above 
mentioned, there are several large 
hollows in the ground in this immedi- 
ate neighborhood, which may have 
been caused by such excavations. The 
formation of the hill is cretaceous, 
and it is well known that chalk is al- 



ways favorable to the rapid decay of 
animal matter. 

13 The interesting but somewhat 
dangerous field of symbolical inter- 
pretation can scarcely be entered 
upon here. 

74 The popular expression " Moxmi 
Calvary " has nothing in either of the 
Gospels to support it. 



330 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XI. 

known in the Church. The procession was followed by a 
multitude, among whom were many women lamenting him ; 
but he bade them weep not for him, but for the fearful troub- 
les that were coming on the land. That no circumstance of 
disgrace might be wanting to bring the substitute for sinners 
down to the lowest level of those for whom he died, two com- 
mon and probably atrocious criminals were led with him to 
death, as the prophet had foretold. 

Arrived at the place of execution, the condemned were 
stripped and fastened to the cross, which was usually of the 
form familiar to us under the name of the Roman cross; 75 
but not nearly so high as is commonly represented. The feet 
of the sufferer were only a foot or two above the ground — a 
fact of some weight, as showing that Jesus suffered in the 
midst of his persecutors, and not looking down from above 
their heads. The body was either nailed or bound by cords 
to the cross, or in both ways. Our Lord was nailed, both by 
the hands and feet, as the prophets had foretold; 76 a method 
more exquisitely painful at first, though tending to shorten 
the torture. When the cross was already standing, the suf- 
ferer was raised up and affixed to it ; but otherwise, as in our 
Saviour's case, he was fastened to it as it lay upon the ground, 
and the shock when it was dropped into the hole or socket must 
have been terrible. To deaden the sense of these tortures, 
a soporific was usually administered; but our Lord refused 
the mixture of wine and myrrh thus offered him, probably 
for a reason already noticed. 77 He still observed the meek si- 
lence which Isaiah had foretold, till all the horrid details were 
accomplished, and he hung upon the cross between the two 
malefactors, on his right and on his left ; being thus emphat- 

75 That is the form of T. the two the Roman soldiers, and which was 
pieces being unequal, as distinguished \ offered to our Saviour at a later pe- 
from the Greek cross, +, with equal riod of his sufferings. (See below, 
arms, and the diagonal or " St. An- note 88 ). There is more difficulty 
drew's cross," X; not to mention or- as to the "gall" and the "myrrh.' 



namented forms. See Notes and Il- 
lustrations (C). 

76 Ps. xxii. 16 ; Zech. xii. 10 ; John 
xx. 25, 27, etc. : comp. Rev. i. 7, the 



The term %oX??, "gall," may well 
have been applied to some soporific 
substance, and may have been used 
by St. Matthew, who writes with a 



latter passage referring to all his | constant view to the prophecies of the 
wounds. I Old Testament, to mark the fulfill- 

77 Mark xv. 23. In the parallel j ment of the prediction in Ps. lxix. 
passage of Matthew (xxvii. 34) it is 21 : " They gave me also gall for my 
"vinegar mingled with gall;" but meat, and in my thirst they gave 
the same drink might easily be called | me vinegar to drink." The exact 
either vinegar or wine, since it was ; soporific ingredient appears to have 
the thin acid wine, usually drunk by been myrrh, as we see from St. Mark. 



A.D. 30. The Penitent Malefactor. 331 

ically "numbered Avith the transgressors." 76 It was then 
that he uttered the first of the seven sayings, which have ever 
been revered as his dying words, a prayer for his murderers — 
u Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" 10 

St. Mark gives us the time of our Saviour's crucifixion, the 
third hour (or 9 o'clock a.m.), 80 the very time when the morning 
sacrifice was offered. AIL the three first Evangelists agree in 
placing his death at the 9th hour, which was the time of the 
evening sacrifice ; the whole space of six hours being divided 
at noon by the beginning of the miraculous darkness. The 
aj>parent discrepancy with the statement of St. John, that it was 
about the sixth hour when Pilate condemned him, is explained 
by supposing that St. John's reckoning is from midnight, and 
that the intervening time (6-9 a.m.) was occupied in prepara- 
tions. 81 

The execution was carried out, and the cross watched, by a 
guard of four soldiers, with a centurion ; and the garments of 
the sufferers were their perquisite. Four parts being made, 
there remained the upper robe, woven throughout without a 
seam, the type of Christ's perfect righteousness, and the 
source of healing to many who had touched it. As it would 
have been spoiled by dividing it, the soldiers decided to cast 
lots for it, thus fulfilling another prophecy : " They parted my 
raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots." 82 

The custom of writing up the culprit's crime on a scroll 
above his head gave Pilate another opportunity of mortifying 
the Jews, while bearing unconscious witness to the truth. To 
avoid all ambiguity, he wrote the title in Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin, a fact which forbids our explaining the various readings 
of the Evangelists by translation, and leaves this a decisive 
proof that their inspiration did not preclude varieties of ex- 
pression, even in quoting important documents. They give it 
in the following forms : 

"This is Jesus, the King of the Jews" (Matthew). 

"The King of the Jews " (Mark). 

"This is the King of the Jews" (Luke). 

"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews" (John). 

That the last was the exact form may be safely inferred from 
St. John's presence at the cross, where the words were before 



78 Is. liii. 12 ; Mark xv. 28. 

79 Luke xxiii. 34. 

80 Mark xv. 24-28. 

81 John xix. 14 ; where, however, 
the Codex Bezas and another MS. of 
high value read the third hour. The 
view mentioned above is maintained 



by Wieseler, Chron. Syn., pp. 410- 
414. 

83 Ps. xxii. 18 ; John xix. 23, 24. 
This has given occasion to the remark, 
that Christians have, in their party 
divisions, paid less respect to their 
Master than the heathen soldiers did 



332 The Passion of Our Lord. Chap. XI 

his eyes for all that memorable six hours, and from his care tG 
specify the languages in which it was written. And who but 
a slave to the letter on the one hand, or a sceptic predeter- 
mined to wrest every difference into a contradiction on the 
other, would for a moment doubt that the other three Evan- 
gelists, intent only on recording the real point of the inscrip- 
tion, were content to give its general sense — " The King of 
the Jews ?" Pilate's shaft did not miss his mark. The chief 
priests wished him to amend the description thus : "He said, 
I am King of the Jews ; " but he silenced them with the an 
swer, " What I have written I have written." 83 

§ 17. For the first three hours (9-12 a.m.), Jesus hung upon 
the cross, exposed to all the insults of the rulers, and of the 
rabble whose cries had changed with his change of fortune. 
Some stood to enjoy the sight ; while others, passing in and 
out of the neighboring city-gate, wagged their heads, and 
taunted him with the very prophecy which was being fulfill- 
ed — the destruction of the temple of his body, that it might 
be raised again in three days. A strong temptation was add- 
ed to these taunts. He was challenged to prove his divine 
power and kingdom by coming down from the cross : nay, 
even the chief priests offered to believe him on that sign, 
though they disbelieved the still higher proof given by his 
resurrection. Of the very culprits who hung beside him, one 
joined in the railing, and dared to demand their deliverance 
and his as a proof that he was the Christ. But the other 
reproved his comrade's madness, confessing the justice of their 
sentence, and bearing witness to Christ's innocence, and then 
turned to him with the prayer, " Lord, remember me when 
thou comest into thy kingdom." Jesus opened his lips for 
the second time with these words, which at once assure the 
penitent sinner that " He is able to save even to the uttermost," 
and the dying believer that to be " absent from the body " is 
to be "present with the Lord" in immediate bliss : — "Verily 
I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." 84 
Thus did Jesus, even on the cross, anticipate, in the case of these 
two types of sinners, the sentence he will pass on those who 

83 Matt, xxvii. 31-38; Mark xv. I rec.tion can not be discussed here. 
20-28 ; Luke xxiii. 26-34, 38 ; John i The statement of Matthew and Mark, 
xix. 17-24. [that the malefactors reviled him, is 

64 Matt, xxvii. 39-44 ; Mark xv, | easily explained by the indefinite use 
29-32 ; Luke xxiii. 35-37, 39-43. The | of the plural. It is of course possible 
bearing of these last words on the ! that both joined, at first, in the same 
great question of the state of departed j insults ; but this seems hardly consist- 
spirits between death and the resur- i ent with Luke's minute account. 



A.D. 30. 



The Death of Jesus. 



333 



stand on the right and on the left hand of his judgment- 
seat. 

Having thus forgiven his persecutors, and blessed the pen- 
itent sinner, our Lord spoke for the third time, in tender care 
of those dear to him on earth. Three women, with the be- 
loved disciple, had dared to stay by his cross. They were 
" the three Marys : " his mother ; her sister, the wife of Clo- 
pas ; 85 and Mary of Magdala. With filial love, even in that 
hour of agony, he bade his mother behold a son in the be- 
loved disciple, and that disciple to look upon her as his moth- 
er ; and henceforward Mary found a home with John. 86 

It was now noon, but such a noon as had never been seen 
in Judaea. The position of the Paschal full moon precluded 
the possibility of a solar eclipse ; and yet a supernatural dark- 
ness rested upon all the land, from the 6th hour to the 9th 
hour, as if to veil the last agonies of the Redeemer from the 
eyes of men. But far deeper than that darkness was the gloom 
that weighed upon the Saviour's soul, as he bore the whole 
burden of the divine wrath for the sins of all men. To that 
awful mystery our only guide is in the words, with which at 
the ninth hour he broke the solemn silence, " My God ! my 
God ! why hast thou forsaken me?" words already used pro- 
phetically by David in the great Psalm which describes the 
Messiah's sufferings — words which never since have been, nor 
ever will be again, wrung from any human being, except 
through sinful despondency or final impenitent despair ; for 
he endured his Father's desertion that we might never have 
to bear it. Their sense was lost upon, the by-standers, who, 
remembering the connection of the promised Elijah with Christ, 
caught at the sound of the word "Eli" (My God) as a call 
for the prophet. 87 At this moment the sufferer's mortal frame 
endured its last agony of intense thirst, and, to fulfill one more 
prophecy he exclaimed, " I thirst." One of the by-standers 
filled a sponge from a vessel standing near, with the mixture 
of acid wine and water which was the common drink of the 
Roman soldiers, 88 and lifting it on a stalk of hyssop, put it to 
his moutb, while the rest said, "Let us see if Elijah will come 

85 This, and not Cleophas, is the 
true l-eading. The name is properly 
represented by the Greek Alphaus; 
and the Cleopas of Luke xxiv. 18 is 
a Greek name, belonging to a differ- 
ent person. 

8G John xix. 25-27. It may be in- 
ferred that Joseph, the husband of 
Mary, was no longer living. 



87 The " Eli " of Matthew is the 
Hebrew form, the "Eloi" of Mark 
the Aramaic. 

HB The thin sour wine of the Eoman 
soldiers was called acetum or posea, 
when mixed with water. This must 
not be confounded with the soporific 
previously offered to our Lord. See 
note 77. " 



334 



The Passion of Our Lord. 



Chap. XL 



to help him." 88b Though offered in derision, it was doubtless 
refreshing to his sinking frame. 

And now all that man could inflict had been endured ; all 
that the Son of God could do and bear for man had been done 
and suffered. The end of his agony and the completion of 
his redeeming work are both announced by the loud cry, " It 
is finished;" the soul which had animated his mortal body 
is yielded back to God with those words of perfect resignation, 
" Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit ; " b0 and, bow- 
ing his head upon his breast, he expired. 90 

Separate as the divine sufferer was from all other men in 
the nature and purpose of his sacrificial death, the spirit with 
which, as a man, he yielded up his life is none the less a mod- 
el for his disciples. His prayer for the forgiveness of his 
murderers, and his resignation of his spirit to God, were re- 
peated, almost in the same words, by the first Christian mar- 
tyr, Stephen ; and it has ever been the great desire of his fol- 
lowers to die, as he died, in charity with man, in affection to 
their kindred, and in resignation to God's will. Like him, too, 
they put off the body of sin and death forever, and cease from 
their works as he did from his ; in the firm belief that, if wo 
be dead with Christ, we shall also live with him. 01 

His death was followed by portents not to be overlooked 
by any of the multitudes assembled at Jerusalem, and forming 
irrefragable evidence for all future time. The priest, who en- 
tered the Holy Place at this very hour, with the blood of the 
evening sacrifice, saw the veil rent in twain from the top to 
the bottom. That veil was the special, as the Temple itself 
was a more general, symbol of Christ's body, the visible cover- 
ing which enshrined the abode of deity ; and the one was rent, 
and the other broken, to show that " a new and living way 
was consecrated for us to enter into the Holiest of all, by the 
blood of Jesus, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." ° 2 
The rocks which surrounded Jerusalem were rent with a great 
earthquake, and the graves were opened, to show that his 



86b It is still believed that drinking 
causes the death of impaled persons, 
and water is withheld to prolong 
their sufferings. 

89 Literally, place it as a deposit, the 
same word of which St. Paul uses 
the cognate noun in the celebrated 
passage, 2 Tim. i. 12. 

90 Matt, xxvii. 45-50 ; Mark xv. 
33-37 ; Luke xxiii. 44-46 ; John xix. 
28-30. It deserves notice that, in 



the last words, Matthew and Mark 
mention only the loud cry, Luke the 
prayer of resignation, and John the 
proclamation, " It is finished." — In 
Notes and Illustrations (C) an ac- 
count is given of the Roman punish- 
ment of crucifixion, which illustrates 
many of the details mentioned in the 
text. s ; 

91 Sec Rom. vi. 2-13. 

u - Jleb, x. 10, foil. 



A.D. 30. 



The Burial of Jesus. 



335 



death was the beginning of new life ; and many of the saints, 
those perhaps who had lately died in the faith of his speedy 
coming, rose and were seen by many in the city after his res 
urrection. 93 Even such wonders were not enough to break 
down the stubborn spirit of the Jews ; they had to wait for the 
stronger influences of the Holy Spirit ; and, at the most, they 
departed with deep feelings of wondering grief. But the Ro- 
man centurion saw enough in the manner of Christ's death, and 
in his expiring words, to make him glorify God by the con- 
fession, " Truly this was a just man ! Truly this was the Son 
of God!" The most attached of his friends, including the 
devoted women who followed him from Galilee, only ventured 
to view the scene from a distance. 94 

§ 18. The day was now drawing to a close, and at sunset 
the Sabbath would begin. 95 " That Sabbath day was a high 
day ; " especially as being the second day of the feast of un- 
leavened bread, when the first-fruits of the harvest were offer- 
ed in the Temple, and whence the fifty days were reckoned to 
the Day of Pentecost. For that Sabbath this day itself was 
the " preparation." This statement, twice made by St. John, 
has caused much debate ; but it seems to refer simply to the 
custom of preparing for any sacred festival on the previous 
day. On this " preparation day " especially, they would put 
away all pollutions and signs of mourning that might mar the 
coming feast. So, though they had not scrupled to enact on 
it a deed which would have profaned any day, they could not 
endure its defilement by the consequences of their judicial 
murder. Pilate readily granted their request, that the suffer- 
ings of the crucified might be ended by breaking their legs 
(for to dispatch them with the sword was deemed too honor- 
able), and that they might be buried. 90 This was done to the 
two malefactors ; but as Christ was found to be dead already, 
his limbs were left unbroken. To make sure, however, of his 
death, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear; and 
blood and water were seen to now mingled from the wound. 
Thus was fulfilled both the prophetic ordinance of the true 
Paschal Lamb, " A bone of him shall not be broken," and that 
other prophecy, " They shall look on him whom they pierced." " 

Most justly does St. John lay the utmost stress on the 

the body to rot upon the- cross ; but 
in consequence of Dent. xxi. 22, 23, 
an express national exception was 
made in favor of the Jews. 

97 Johnxix. 31-42 : comp. Ex. xii. 
46; Ps. xxxiv. 20; Zech. xxti. 10; 
Pa. xx. 16, 17 \ Rev. i. 7. 



93 Matt, xxvii. 51-54; Mark xv. 
38 ; Luke xxiii. 45. 

04 Matt, xxvii. 51-56. 

05 The sunset, at a time so near the 
equinox, was of course soon after 6 

P.M. 

66 The Romans generally allowed 



336 



The Passion of Our Lord. 



Chap. XL 



truth of his testimony, as an eye-witness, to this incident, not 
only for the spiritual sense which he afterward gave it, 97b but 
as the very turning-point on which the credibility of the Gos- 
pel rests. It established beyond a doubt the reality of Christ's 
death, without full proof of which the evidence of his resur- 
rection would always have been questionable. And the mat- 
ter was put beyond all dispute by the care of Pilate to ascer. 
tain from the centurion the truth of a death so unusually 
speedy. 98 The tortures of crucifixion were often prolonged 
three days, and even more ; but the exhaustion of our Saviour's 
toil-worn frame, by his night of agony, and by his inexpressi- 
ble mental anguish on the cross, are causes adequate to ex- 
plain his dying in six hours ; while the abundant flow of 
lymph and blood, due to the piercing of the pericardium, 
makes it probable that he died literally of " a broken heart." 9S> 
§ 19. Meanwhile Joseph of Arimathgea, a rich man and a 
member of the Sanhedrim, who had been no party to their 
councils against Jesus, now boldly avowed his secret disciple- 
ship by coming to Pilate and begging the body of Jesus. Pi- 
late consented, as soon as he had satisfied himself of the real 
death. Joseph's example gave courage to Nicodemus, who 
brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes to anoint the corpse ; 
even as the Jewish kings used to be buried in spices. The 
near approach of the Sabbath left no time for the final funeral 
ceremonies. They took down the body from the cross ; and 
wrapping it hastily in linen, with the spices, they laid it in a 
new rock-hewn sepulchre, which Joseph had made for himself, 
in a garden close at hand. To secure the sepulchre during 
the Sabbath, they rolled a great stone against its door, and de- 
parted. Thus was the prophecy fulfilled, that the Messiah 
should " make his grave with the rich." 10 ° Mary Magdalene, 
and Mary the sister of Christ's mother, who had sat opposite 
the sepulchre during the burial, and had seen how the body 
was laid in it," 1 went home, postponing the preparation of 
their spices and ointments for the full performance of the 
funeral rites till after the Sabbath ; and then " they rested 
the Sabbath day according to the commandment." The 
mother of Jesus seems to have been led home from the cross, 
when the body was taken down, by John, her new-found son. 1 " 



97 b 1 John v. 6, & 
08 Mark xv. 44,45. 

99 This is ably maintained in the 
work of Dr. Stroud, On the Physical 
Cause of the Death of Christ. 

100 Is. liii. 9. 



101 Hence they were prepared to see 
at once that Jesus had left the sepul- 
chre. 

102 Matt, xxvii. 57-61 ; Mark xv. 
42-47 ; Luke xxiii. 50-56 ; John xix, 
38-42. 



Chap. XI. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



337 



§ 20. The Sabbath day (Easter Eve) : Saturday, the 16th 
of Nisan {April 1th), from the preceding sunset. — The sacred 
narrative leaves the disciples in the overwhelming grief and 
desolation amid which they kept this Sabbath ; having, as we 
may infer from the events of the next day, re-assembled from 
their dispersion, and looking forward, though with only the 
faintest hope, to the third day, on which Jesus had foretold 
his resurrection. 103 The chief priests and Pharisees also 
remembered the prediction with alarm, and on the pretense that 
his disciples might steal away the body, they obtained Pilate's 
permission to set a watch of soldiers over the tomb, saw that 
it was securely shut, and sealed the stone. 104 



103 SeeLukexxiv.21. 

104 Matt, xxvii. 62-66. 



f of the Sepulchre, see Notes and Illus- 
On the site J trations (D). 



NOTES AND ILLUSTBATIONS. 



(A.) THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 

The " Mount of Olives " (to opoq 
tS>v eXaiiov) is the usual form of the 
name in the N. T. ; but in Acts i. 12 
we find it called "the mount called 
Olivet *' (opoQTO KciXovfjLEvov iXaicov), 
the word Olivet being borrowed from 
the Latin Olivetum, which is a trans- 
lation of tXaiujv, signifying a place 
where olives grow, an olive-garden or 
olive-yard. St. Luke uses the form 
eXaiujv in two other passages (Luke 
xix. 29, xxi. 37) but the received text 
erroneously reads tXaiuJv, " of olives/' 
which is followed in the Authorized 
Version. 

The Mount of Olives is the well- 
known eminence on the east of Jeru- 
salem. It is, however, not so much 
a " mount " as a ridge, of rather more 
than a mile in length, running in gen- 
eral direction north and south ; cov- 
ering the whole eastern side of the 
city. At its northern end the ridge 



bends round to the west, so as to form 
an enclosure to the city on that side 
also. But there is this difference, 
that whereas on the north a space of 
nearly a mile of tolerably level surface 
intervenes between the walls of the 
city and the rising ground, on the east 
the mount is close to the walls, part- 
ed only by that which from the city 
itself seems no parting at all — the 
narrow ravine of the Kidron. It is 
this portion which is the real Mount 
of Olives of the history. The north- 
ern part is, though geologically con- 
tinuous, a distinct mountain. We 
will therefore confine ourselves to th's 
portion. In general height it is not 
very much above the city : 300 feet 
higher than the Temple Mount, hard- 
ly more than 100 above the so-called 
Zion. The word " riclge " has been 
used above as the only one available 
for an eminence of some length and 
even height, but that word is hardly 
accurate. There is nothing "ridge. 



338 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XI. 



like " in the appearance of the Mount 
of Olives, or of any other of the lime- 
stone hills of this district of Pales- 
tine ; all is rounded, swelling, and 
regular in form. At a distance its 
outline is almost horizontal, gradually 
sloping away at its southern end ; but 
when seen from below the eastern 
wall of Jerusalem, it divides itself into 
three, or rather perhaps four, inde- 
pendent summits or eminences. Pro- 
ceeding from north to south these oc- 
cur in the following order : — Galilee, 
or Viri Galilaei ; Mount of the Ascen- 
sion; Prophets, subordinate to the last 
and almost a part of it; Mount of 
Offense. 

I. Of these the central one, Mount 
op the Ascension, distinguished by 
the minaret and domes of the Church 
of the Ascension, is in every way the 
most important. Three paths lead 
from the valley to the summit (see 
the drawing on p. 347) The first 
passes under the north wall of the en- 
closure of Gethsemane, and follows 
the line of the depression between the 
centre and the northern hill. The 
second parts from the first about 50 
yards beyond Gethsemane, and strik- 
ing oft to the right up the very breast 
of the hill, surmounts the projection 
on which is the traditional spot of 
the Lamentation over Jerusalem, and 
thence proceeds directly upward to 
the village. The third leaves the 
other two at the N.E. corner of Geth- 
semane, and making a considerable 
detour to the south, visits the so-call- 
ed ''Tombs of the Prophets," and, 
following a very slight depression 
which occurs at that part of the mount, 
arrives in its turn at the village. Of 
these three paths the first, from the 
fact that it follows the natural shape 
of the ground, is unquestionably older 
than the others, which deviate in pur- 
suit of certain artificial objects. Every 
consideration is in favor of its being 
the road usually taken by our Lord 
and his disciples in their morning 



and evening transit between Jerusa- 
lem and Bethany, and that also by 
which the Apostles returned to Jeru- 
salem after the Ascension. The cen- 
tral hill, which we are now consider- 
ing, purports to contain the sites of 
some of the most sacred and impress- 
ive events of Christian history. Dur- 
ing the Middle Ages most of these 
were protected by an edifice of some 
sort ; and to judge from the reports 
of the early travelers, the mount 
must at one time have been thickly 
covered with churches and convents. 
The majority of these sacred spots 
now command little or no attention ; 
but three still remain, sufficiently sa- 
cred — if authentic — to consecrate any 
place. These are: 1. Gethsemane, 
at the foot of the mount. 2. The 
spot from which our Saviour ascend- 
ed, on the summit. 3. The place of 
the Lamentation of Christ over Jeru- 
salem, half-way up. 

1. Of these, Gethsemane is the 
only one which has any claim to be 
authentic. It was situated about 
£ or § of a mile English from the walls 
of Jerusalem, between the brook 
Kedron and the foot of the mount. 
There was a " garden," or rather 
orchard (Kijirog), attached to it, con- 
taining olive-trees, from which the 
place obtained its name (the Oil- 
Press). A modern garden, in which 
are 8 venerable olive-trees, and a 
grotto to the north, detached from it, 
and in closer connection with the 
Church of the Sepulchre of the Vir- 
gin, both securely enclosed, and un- 
der lock and key, are pointed out as 
making up the true Gethsemane. 
The largest of these trees is 6 yards 
round, and they are reckoned to I e 
2000 years old, so that they may have 
been contemporary with our Lord. 
But against this, it has been urged 
that Titus cut down all the trees 
round about Jerusalem ; and certain- 
ly this is no more than Josephus 
states in express terms (B. J. vi. 1- 



Chap. XL 



Notes and Illustrations. 



339 



§ 1 ). The probability therefore would 
seem to be, that they were planted by 
Christian hands to mark the spot ; 
unless, like the sacred olive of the 
Acropolis, they may have reproduced 
themselves. There are at present 
only 8 trees. 

2. The first person who attached 
the Ascension of Christ to the Mount 
of Olives seems to have been the Em- 
press Helena (a. d. 325). Eusebius 
states that she erected, as a memo- 
rial of that event, a sacred house of 
assembly on the highest part of the 
mount, where there was a cave which 
a sure tradition testified to be that in 
which the Saviour had imparted mys- 
teries to his disciples. But neither 
this account, nor that of the same 
author when the cave is again men- 
tioned, do more than name the Mount 
of Olives, generally, as the place from 
which Christ ascended : they fix no 
definite spot thereon. It took nearly 
three centuries to harden and narrow 
this general recognition of the con- 
nection of the Mount of Olives with 
Christ into an invention in contradic- 
tion of the Gospel narrative of the 
Ascension. For a contradiction it 
undoubtedly is. Two accounts of the 
Ascension exist, both by the same 
author — the one, Luke xxiv. 50, 51, 
the other Acts i. 6-11. The former 
only of these names the place at 
which our Lord ascended. That 
place was not the summit of the 
Mount, but Bethany — ' ' He led them 
out as far as to Bethany " — on the 
eastern slopes of the Mount nearly a 
mile beyond the traditional spot. 
The narrative of the Acts does not 
name the scene of the occurrence, 
but it states that after it had taken 
place the Apostles "returned to 
Jerusalem from the mount called 
Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a 
Sabbath day's journey." It was their 
natural, their only route ; but St. 
Luke is writing for Gentiles ignorant 
of the localities, and therefore he not 



only names Olivet, but adds the gen- 
eral information that it — that is, the 
summit and main part of the mount 
— was a Sabbath day's journey from 
Jerusalem. The specification of the 
distance no more applies to Bethany 
on the further side of the mount than 
to Gethsemane on the nearer. 

3. The third of the three tradi~ 
tionary spots mentioned — that of the 
Lamentation over Jerusalem (Luke 
xix. 41-44) — is not more happily chos- 
en than that of the Ascension. It is 
on a mamelon or protuberance which 
projects from the slope of the breast 
of the hill, about 300 yards above 
Gethsemane. The inappropriatencss 
of this place has been noticed by 
many ; but Dean Stanley was the 
first who gave it its death-blow, by 
pointing out the true spot to take its 
place. In a well-known passage of 
Sinai and Palestine (190-193), he 
shows that the road of our Lord's 
"Triumphal entry " must have been, 
not the short and steep path over 
the summit used by small parties of 
pedestrians, but the longer and easier 
route round the southern shoulder of 
the southern of the three divisions of 
the mount. 

II. We have spoken of the central 
and principal portion of the mount. 
Next to it on the southern side, sep- 
arated from it by a slight depression, 
up which the path mentioned above 
as the third takes its course, is a hill 
which appears neither to possess, nor 
to have possessed, any independent 
name. It is remarkable only for the 
fact that it contains the "singular 
catacomb " known as the Tombs of 
the Prophets, probably in allusion 
to the words of Christ (Matt, xxiii. 
29). 

III. The most southern portion of 
the Mount of Olives is that usually 
known as the Mount of Offense, 
Mons Offensionis, though by the 
Arabs called Baten el Haiva, " tho 
ba" of the wind." It rises next to 



340 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Ciiap. XL 



that last mentioned ; and in the hol- 
low between the two, more marked 
than the depression between the more 
northern portions, runs the road from 
Bethany, which was without doubt 
the road of Christ's entry to Jeru- 
salem. The title Mount of Offense, 
or of Scandal, was bestowed on the 
supposition that it is the "Mount of 
Corruption" on which Solomon erect- 
ed the high places for the gods of his 
foreign wives (2 K. xxiii. 13 ; 1 K. 
xi. 7). The southern summit is con- 
siderably lower than the centre one, 
and it is much more definitely sep.- 
arated from the surrounding portions 
of the mountain than the others are. 
It is also sterner and more repulsive 
in its form. 

IV. The only one of the four sum- 
mits remaining to be considered is 
that on the north of the "Mount of 
Ascension " — the Karon es Seyacl, or 
Vineyard of the Sportsman ; or, as it 
is called by the modern Latin and 
Greek Christians, the Viri Galil^ei. 
This is a hill of exactly the same 
character as the Mount of the Ascen- 
sion, and so nearly its equal in height 
that few travelers agree as to which 
is the more lofty. The summits of 
the two are about 400 yards apart. 
It stands directly opposite the N.E. 
corner of Jerusalem, and is approach- 
ed by the path between it and the 
Mount of Ascension, which strikes 
at the top into a cross-path leading 
to et-Isawiyeh and Anata. The 
Arabic name well reflects the fruitful 
character of the hill, on which there 
are several vineyards, besides much 
cultivation of other kinds. The 
Christian name is due to the singular 
tradition, that here the two angels 
addressed the Apostles after our 
Lord's ascension — "Ye men of Gal- 
ilee!" This idea, which is so in- 
compatible, on account of the dis- 
tance, even with the traditional spot 
of the Ascension, is of late existence 
and inexplicable origin. 



The presence of the crowd of 
churches and other edifices implied 
in the foregoing description must 
have rendered the Mount of Olives, 
during the early and middle ages of 
Christianity, entirely unlike what it 
was in the time of the Jewish king- 
dom or of our Lord. Except the 
high places on the summit, the only 
buildings then to be seen were prob- 
ably the walls of the vineyards and 
gardens, and the towers and presses 
which were their invariable accompa- 
niment. But though the churches 
ai*e nearly all demolished, there must 
be a considerable difference between 
the aspect of the mountain now and 
in those days when it received its 
name from the abundance of its olive- 
groves. It does not now stand so 
pre-eminent in this respect among the 
hills in the neighborhood of Jerusa- 
lem. " It is only in the deeper and 
more secluded slope leading up to the 
northernmost summit that these ven- 
erable trees spread into any thing 
like a forest." The cedars com- 
memorated by the Talmud have fared 
still worse : there is not one of them 
to be found within many miles. 

Two religious ceremonies perform- 
ed there must have done much to 
increase the numbers who resorted to 
the mount. The appearance of the 
new moon was probably watched for, 
certainly proclaimed, from the sum- 
mit. The second ceremony referred 
to was the burning of the Bed Heifer. 
This solemn ceremonial was enacted 
on the central mount, and in a spot 
so carefully specified that it would 
seem not difficult to fix it. It was 
due east of the sanctuary, and at such 
an elevation on the mount that the 
officiating priest as he slew the ani- 
mal and sprinkled her blood, could 
see the facade of the sanctuary 
through the east gate of the Temple. 
To this spot a viaduct Avas construct- 
ed across the valley on a doutAe row 
of arches, so as to raise it fa* obrvo 



Chap. XL 



Notes and Illustrations. 



341 



all possible proximity with graves or 
other defilements. It was probably 
demolished by the Jews themselves 
on the approach of Titus, or even 
earlier, when Pompey led his army 
by Jericho and over the Mount of 
Olives. This would account satis- 
factorily for its not being alluded to 
by Josephus. " The lasting glory of 
the Mount of Olives," it has been well 
said, "belongs not to the Old Dis- 
pensation, but to the New. Its very 
barrenness of interest in earlier times 
sets forth the abundance of those as- 
sociations which it derives from the 
closing scenes of the sacred history. 
Nothing, perhaps, brings before us 
more strikingly the contrast of 
Jewish and Christian feeling, the 
abrupt and inharmonious termina- 
tion of the Jewish dispensation — if 
we exclude the culminating point of 
the Gospel history — than to contrast 
the blank which Olivet presents to the 
Jewish pilgrims of the Middle Ages, 
only dignified by the sacrifice of ' the 
red heifer;' and the vision too great 
for words, which it offers to the 
Christian traveler of all times, as the 
most detailed and the most authentic 
abiding-place of Jesus Christ. ... It 
is useless to seek for traces of his 
presence in the streets of the since 
ten times captured city. It is im- 
possible not to find them in the free 
space of the Mount of Olives " (Stan- 
ley, Sin. and Pal. 1 89). 



(B.) THE PASCHAL SUPPER. 

A general account of the Passover 
is given in the Old Testament History, 
App. pp. 215 foil. It is necessary to 
repeat here some particulars, in oi'der 
to show its connection with the last 
Supper of our Lord. 

The manner in which the Paschal 
feast was kept by the Jews at the time 
o e our Lord differed in many details 
b .m that originally prescribed by the 



rules of Ex. xii. The multitudes that 
came up to Jerusalem met, as they 
could find accommodation, family by 
family, or in groups of friends, with 
one of their number as the celebrant, 
or "proclaimer" of the feast. The 
ceremonies of the feast took place in 
the following order. (1) The mem- 
bers of the company that were joined 
for this purpose met in the evening 
and reclined on couches, this position 
being now as much a matter of rule 
as standing had been originally (comp. 
Matt. xxvi. 20, avsictiTo; Luke xxii. 
14 ; and John xiii. 23, 25). The head 
of the household, or celebrant, began 
by a form of blessing "for the day and 
for the wine," pronounced over a cup, 
of which he and the others then drank. 
The wine was, according to Rabbinic 
traditions, to be mixed with water ; 
not for any mysterious reason, but be- 
cause that was regarded as the best 
way of using the best wine (comp. 
2 Mace. xv. 39). (2) All who were 
present then washed their hands ; this 
also having a special benediction. (3) 
The table was then set out with the 
Paschal lamb, unleavened bread, bit- 
ter herbs, and the dish known as 
Charoseth, a sauce made of dates, figs, 
raisins and vinegar, and designed to 
commemorate the mortar of their 
bondage in Egypt. (4) The celebrant 
first, and then the others, dipped a 
portion of the bitter herbs into the 
Charoseth and ate them. (5) The 
dishes were then removed, and a cup 
of wine again brought. Then followed 
an interval which was allowed theo- 
retically for the questions that might 
be asked by children or proselytes, 
who were astonished at such a strange 
beginning of a feast, and the cup was 
passed round and drunk at the close 
of it. (6) The dishes being brought 
on again, the celebrant repeated the 
commemorative words which opened 
what was strictly the Paschal supper, 
and pronounced a solemn thanks* 
giving, followed by Ps. cxiii. and cxiv 



342 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XI. 



(7) Then came a second washing of 
the hands, with a short form of bless- 
ing as before, and the celebrant broke 
one of the two loaves or cakes of un- 
leavened bread, and gave thanks over 
it. All then took portions of the bread 
and dipped them, together with the 
bitter herbs, into the Charoseth, and 
so ate them. (8) After this they ate 
the flesh of the Paschal lamb, with 
'bread, etc., as they liked ; and after 
another blessing, a third cup, known 
especially as the "cup of blessing," 
was handed round. (9) This was 
succeeded by a fourth cup, and the 
recital of Ps. cxv.-cxviii., followed 
by a prayer, and this was accordingly 
known as the cup of the Hallel, or of 
the Song. (10) There might be, in 
conclusion, a fifth cup, provided that 
the " great Hallel" (possibly Psalms 
cxx.-cxxxvii.) was sung over it. 

Comparing the ritual thus gathered 
from Kabbinic writers with the N. T., 
and assuming that it represents sub- 
stantially the common practice of our 
Lord's time, and that the meal of 
which he and his disciples partook 
was the Passover, we are able to point, 
though not with absolute certainty, to 
the points of departure which the old 
practice presented for the institution 
of the new. To (I) or (3) or even to 
(8), we may refer the first words and 
the first distribution of the cup (Luke 
xxii. 17, 18) ; to (4) or (7), the dipping 
of the sop {-^ujjxiov) of John xiii. 26 ; to 
(7), or to an interval during or after 

(8) the distribution of the bread (Matt. 
xxvi. 26 ; Mark xiv. 22 ; Luke xxii. 
19 ; 1 Cor. xi. 23, 24) ; to (9) or (10) 
("after supper," Luke xxii. 20) the 
thanksgiving, and distribution of the 
cup, and the hymn with which the 
whole was ended. It will be noticed 
that, according to this order of suc- 
cession, the question whether .Judas 
partook of what, in the language of a 
later age, would be called the conse- 
crated elements, is most probably to 
be answered in the negative. 



In the preceding account we have 
assumed that the meal, at which our 
Lord instituted the sacrament of the 
Eucharist, was the Paschal supper. 
But this has been much disputed. If 
we had nothing to guide us but the 
three first Gospels, no doubt of the 
kind could well be raised, though the 
narratives may not be free from diffi- 
culties in themselves. We find them 
speaking, in accordance with Jewish 
usage, of the day of the supper as that 
on which " the Passover must be 
killed," and as "the first day of un- 
leavened bread" (Matt, xxvi. 17; 
Mark xiv. 12 ; Luke xxii. 7). Each 
relates that the use of the guest- 
chamber was secured in the manner 
usual with those who came from a 
distance to keep the festival. Each 
states that " they made ready the 
Passover," and that, when the even- 
ing was come, our Lord, taking the 
place of the head of the family, sat 
down with the Twelve. He himself 
distinctly calls the meal "this Pass- 
over" (Luke xxii. 15, 16). After a 
thanksgiving, he passes round the 
first cup of wine (Luke xxii. 17), and, 
when the supper is ended, the usual 
" cup of blessing " (comp. Luke xxii. 
20 * 1 Cor. x. 16, xi. 25). A hymn 
is then sung (Matt. xxvi. 30 ; Mark 
xiv. 26), which it is reasonable to 
suppose was the last part of the 
Hallel. 

But on the other hand, if we had 
no information but that which is to 
be gathered from St. John's Gospel, 
we should naturally infer that the 
evening of the supper was that of the 
13th of Nisan, the day preceding that 
of the Paschal meal. It appears to 
be spoken of as occun-ing before the 
Feast of the Passover (xiii. 1, 2). 
Some of the disciples suppose that 
Christ told Judas, while they were at 
supper, to buy what they " had need 
of against the feast" (xiii. 29). In 
the night which follows the supper, 
the Jews will not enter the PraBtoriuni 



CiiAr. XI. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



343 



lest they should be denied and so not 
able to " eat the Passover " (xviii. 28). 
When our Lord is before Pilate, about 
to be led out to crucifixion, we are 
told that it was "the preparation of 
the Passover" (xix. 14), After the 
crucifixion, the Jews are solicitous, 
"because it was the preparation, that 
the bodies should not remain upon the 
cross on the Sabbath day, for that 
Sabbath day was a high day " (xix. 
31). 

We have to show that the passages 
in St. John may be fairly interpreted 
in such a manner as not to interfere 
with our own conclusion. 

1. John xiii. 1, 2. irpd rrjg loprng. 
The words are of doubtful extent ; 
and we may regard the first verse as 
incomplete in itself, understanding its 
purport to be that "Before the Pass- 
over, in the prospect of his departure, 
the Saviour's love was actively called 
forth toward his followers, and he 
gave proof of his love to the last." 

2. John xiii. 29. It is urged that 
the things of which they had "need 
against the feast " might have been 
the provisions for the Chagigah, per- 
haps with what else was required for 
the seven days of unleavened bread. 
The usual day for sacrificing the 
Chagigah was the 15th, which was 
then commencing. 

3. John xviii. 28. The Jews re- 
fused to enter the Prastorium, lest 
they should be defiled and so dis- 
qualified from eating the Passover. 
The words may either be taken in a 
general sense as meaning " that they 
might go on keeping the Passover," 
or that to Traax a mav De understood 
specifically to denote the Chagigah. 

4. John xix. 14. "The prepara- 
tion of the Passover " at first sight 
would seem as if it must be the prep- 
aration for the Passover on the 14th. 
But while there was a regular " prep- 
aration" for the Sabbath, there is no 
mention of any "preparation" for 
the festivals. It seems to be essen- 



tially connected with the Sabbath it- 
self (John xix. 31). The phrase in 
John xix. 14 may thus be understood 
as the preparation of the Sabbath 
which fell in the Passover w r eek. 
Thus the day of the preparation men- 
tioned in the Gospels might have 
fallen on the day of holy convocation, 
the 15th of Nisan. 

5. John xix. 31. " That Sabbath 
day was a high day." Any Sabbath 
occurring in the Passover week might 
have been considered "a high day," 
as deriving an accession of dignity 
from the festival. But the special 
dignity of this day may have resulted 
from its being that on which the Omer 
was offered, and from which were 
reckoned the fifty days to Pentecost. 

G The difficulty of supposing that 
our Lord's apprehension, trial, and 
crucifixion took place on the day of 
holy convocation has been strongly 
urged. But we have better proof 
than either the Mishna or the Ge- 
mara can afford, that the Jews did 
not hesitate, in the time of the Ro- 
man domination, to carry arms and 
to apprehend a prisoner on a solemn 
feast-day. We find them at the 
Feast of Tabernacles, on the "great 
day of the feast," sending out officers 
to take our Lord, and rebuking them 
for not bringing him (John vii. 32- 
45). St. Peter also was seized dull- 
ing the Passover (Acts xii. 3, 4). 
And, again, the reason alleged by the 
rulers for not apprehending Jesus 
was, not the sanctity of the festival, 
but the fear of an uproar among the 
multitude which was assembled (Matt. 
xx vi. 5). 

In fine, due weight should be given 
to the antecedent probability that the 
meal was no other than the regular 
Passover, and the reasonableness of 
the contrary view can not be maiiv 
tained without some artificial theory, 
having no foundation either in Script* 
ure or ancient testimonv. 



344 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XL 



(C.) CRUCIFIXION. 

The Romans unanimously consid- 
ered crucifixion the most horrible 
form of death, -worse even than 
burning, since the "cross" precedes 
"burning " in the law-books. Hence 
it is called crudelissimum teterrimum- 
que supplieium (Cic. Verr. v. 06), and 
to a Jew it would acquire factitious 
horror from the curse in Deut. xxi. 
23. Among the Romans also the 
degradation was a part of the inflic- 
tion, since it was especially a servile 
punishment, so that even a freedman 
ceased to dread it ; or if applied to 
freemen, it was only in the case of 
the vilest criminals, thieves, etc. In- 
deed, exemption from it was the priv- 
ilege of every Roman citizen. 

The cross was of various forms, of 
which the following are the princi- 
pal : 

1. The crux simplex, or mere stake 
" of one single piece without tran- 
som," was probably the original of 
the rest. The criminal was tied to 
the stake {ad palum deligare, Liv. 
xxvi. 13), from which he hung by his 
arms. Trees were naturally con- 
venient for this purpose, and we read 
of their being applied to such use in 
the Martyrologies. 2. The crux de- 
cussata is called St. Andrew's cross, 
although on no good grounds, since, 
according to some, he was killed with 
the sword. It was in the shape of 
the Greek letter X. 3. The cmx 
commissa, or St. Anthony's cross (so 
called from being embroidered on 
that saint's cope, Mrs. Jameson's Sa- 
cred Art, i. xxxv.), was in the shape 
of a T. This shape is often alluded 
to by the Fathers as " the mystical 
Tau." 4. The crux immissa (or Latin 
cross) differed from the former by the 
projection of the upright above the 
cross-bar, and was in the form off- 
That this was the kind of cross on 
which our Lord died is obvious from 
the mention of the " title," as placed 



above our Lord's head, and from the 
almost unanimous tradition ; it is re- 
peatedly found on the coins and col- 
umns of Constantine. There was a 
projection from the central stem, on 
which the body of the sufferer rested. 
This was to prevent the weight of the 
body from tearing away the hands. 
Whether there was also a support to 
the feet (as we see in pictures), is 
doubtful. An inscription (titulus or 
elogiuwi) was generally placed above 
the criminal's head, briefly express- 
ing his guilt, and carried before him. 
It was covered with white gypsum, 
and the letters were black. It is a 
question whether tying or nailing to 
the cross was the more common 
method. That our Lord was nailed, 
according to prophecy, is certain 
(John xx. 25, 27, etc. ; Zech. xii. 10; 
Fs. xxii. 16). It is, however, ex- 
tremely probable that both methods 
were used at once. 

The punishment commenced with 
scourging, after the criminal had 
been stripped ; hence in the com- 
mon form of sentence we find " sum- 
move, lictor, despolia, verbera," etc. 
(Liv. i. 26). It was inflicted not 
with the comparatively mild virgoe, 
but the more terrible flagellum (Hor. 
Sat. i. 3 ; 2 Cor. xi. 24J 25), which 
was not used by the Jews (Deut. xxv. 
3). Into these scourges the soldiers 
often stuck nails, pieces of bone, etc., 
to heighten the pain. The scourge 
ing generally took place at a column, 
and the one to which our Lord was 
bound was seen by several of the 
Fathers, and is still shown at several 
churches among the relics. In our 
Lord's case, however, this infliction 
seems neither to have been the legal 
scourging after the sentence, nor yet 
the examination by torture (Acts xxii. 
24), but rather a scourging before the 
sentence, to excite pity and procure 
immunity from further punishment 
(Luke xxiii. 22; John xix. 1); and 
if this view be correct, the scourging 



:aixp. XL 



Notes and Illustrations. 



345 



in Matt, xxvii. 26 is retrospective, as 
so great an anguish could hardly 
have been endured twice. How se- 
vere it Avas is indicated in prophecy 
(Ps. xxv. 15 ; Is. 1. G). The scarlet 
robe, crown of thorns, and other in- 
sults to which our Lord was subject- 
ed were illegal, and arose from the 
spontaneous petulance of the brutal 
soldiery. The ciiminal carried his 
own cross, or at any rate a part of it. 
Hence the term Furcifer — cross-bear- 
er. He was sometimes scourged and 
goaded on the way. 

The place of execution was out- 
side the city ("post urbem," Cic. 
Verr. v. GG ; "extra porlam," Plant. 
Mil. 67. ii. 4, 6 ; Acts vii. 58 ; Heb. 
xiii. 12; and in camps "extra val- 
lum "), often in some public road or 
other conspicuous place like the 
Campus Martius, or some spot set 
apart for the purpose. Arrived at 
the place of execution, the sufferer 
was stripped naked, the dress being 
the perquisite of the soldiers (Matt. 
xxvii. 35) ; the cross was then driven 
into the ground, so that the feet of 
the condemned were a foot or two 
above the earth (in pictures of the 
crucifixion the cross is generally 
much too large and high), and he 
was lifted upon it, or else stretched 
upon it on the ground, and then lift- 
ed with it. Before the nailing or 
binding took place a medicated cup 
was given out of kindness, to confuse 
the senses and deaden the pangs of 
the sufferer. Our Lord refused it, 
that his senses might be clear (Matt. 
xxvii. 34 ; Mark xv. 23). 

Our Lord, when crucified, was 
watched according to custom by a 
party of four soldiers (John xix. 23), 
whose express office was to prevent 
the stealing of the body. This was 
necessary from the lingering charac- 
ter of the death, which sometimes did 
not supervene even for three days, and 
was at last the result of gradual be- 
numbing and starvation. But for 
P 2 



this guard, the persons might have 
been taken down and recovered, as 
was actually done in the case of afriend 
of Josephus (Vit. 75). Among the 
Convulsionnairesin the reign of Louis 
XV. women would be repeatedly cru- 
cified, and even remain on the cross 
three hours ; the pain consisted al- 
most entirely in the nailing, and not 
more than a basinful of blood was 
lost. Fracture of the legs was es- 
pecially adopted by the Jews to hasten 
death (John xix. 31), and it was a 
mitigation of the punishment. Gen- 
erally the body was suffered to rot on 
the cross, by the action of sun and 
rain, or to be devoured by birds and 
beasts. Sepulture was generally 
therefore forbidden, though it might 
be granted as a special favor or on 
grand occasions. But in consequence 
of Deut. xxi. 22, 23, an express na- 
tional exception was made in favor 
of the Jews. 

(D.) THE SITE OF THE HOLY 
SEPULCHRE. 

The site of the Holy Sepulchre 
has been a fruitful subject of contro- 
versy. Its discovery by Constantino 
is related fry Eusebius, who tells us 
that certain impious persons had 
heaped earth upon the sacred cave 
and erected a temple of Venus upon 
the site ; that Constantino caused the 
temple to be demolished and the 
earth to be removed ; and that as 
soon as this was done, there appear- 
ed immediately beneath the covering 
of earth the cave in which our Sav- 
iour had been buried (Euseb. Vit. 
Const, iii. 25-28). 

This is not the place to give an ac- 
count of the controversy. We can 
only mention the three principal 
views that have been held upon the 
subject. 

1. The first of these theories main- 
tains that the present Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre, which is situate in 



346 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XL 



the heart of the modern city, is the 
site of the actual sepulchre of our 
Lord. The first person who ventured 
publicly to express his dissent from 
this view was Korte, a German print- 
er, who traveled in Palestine about 
the year 1728. On visiting Jerusa- 
lem he was struck with the apparent 
impossibility of reconciling the site 
of the present Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre with the exigencies of the 
Bible narrative, and on his return 
home published a work denying the 
authenticity of the so-called sacred 
locality. His heresies excited very 
little attention at the time, or for 
long afterward ; but the spirit of 
inquiry which has sprung up during 
the present century has revived the 
controversy which has so long been 
dormant, and many pious and ear- 
nest men, both Protestant and Catho- 
lic, have expressed with more or less 
distinctness the difficulties they feel 
in reconciling the assumed locality 
with the indications in the Bible. 
The arguments in favor of the pres- 
ent locality being the correct one, are 
well summed up by the Rev. George 



Williams in his work on the Holy 
City, and with the assistance of Pro- 
fessor Willis all has been said that 
can be urged in favor of its authen- 
ticity. 

2. Professor Robinson, on the 
other hand, in his elaborate works 
on Palestine, has brought together 
all the arguments which from the 
time of Korte have been accumulat- 
ing against the authenticity of the 
sites. He comes to the conclusion 
that the site of the Holy Sepulchre 
is now, and must in all probability 
forever remain, a mystery. 

3. The third theory is that put for- 
ward by Mr. Fergusson. It agrees 
generally with the views urged by all 
those, from Korte to Robinson, who 
doubt the authenticity of the present 
site of the sepulchre ; but instead of 
acquiescing in the desponding view 
taken by the latter, it goes on to assert 
that the building now known to Chris- 
tians as the Mosque of Omar, but by 
Moslems called the Dome of the 
Rock, is the identical church which 
Constantine erected over the rock 
which contained the tomb of Christ. 







Mount of Olives. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF CHRIST. FROM EASTER 
DAY TO ASCENSION DAY, APRIL ST!! TO MAY 1 7tH, A.D. 30. 

§ 1. First Day of the next week: the 17th of Nisan, Sunday, April 8th, East- 
er Day — Difficulties in the Harmony — (i.) The Resurrection of 
Christ — Its time — The "three days" in the tomb — (ii.) Visit of the 
women to the Sepulchre, which they find empty — (iii.) Mary Magda- 
lene carries the news to Peter and John — (iv.) Vision of an angel to 
the women — (v.) First Appearance of Jesus, to the women on their re- 
turn — (vi.) Peter and John go to the Sepulchre — Order of the grave- 
clothes — (vii.) Second Appearance of Jesus, to Mary Magdalene at the 
Sepulchre — (viii.) Third Appearance of Jesus, to Peter — (ix.) His 
Fourth appearance, on the journey to Emmaus — (x.) His Fifth Appear- 
ance, to the assembled Apostles, except Thomas — Their commission 
and inspiration. § 2. Sunday, the 24th of Nisan, April loth — (xi.) 
Christ's Sixth Appearance, to all the Apostles — Confession of Thomas. 
§ 3. The disciples depart into Galilee— (xii.) Christ's Seventh Appeal-- 
ance, to the Apostles at the Lake of Galilee — Peter's avowal of his 
love : his new commission given, and his death foretold — (xiii.) Christ's 
Eighth Appearance, to the great body of his disciples on the Galilean 
Mount — His great commission, and promise of the Holy Spirit — (xiv.) 
Christ's Ninth Appearance, to James. § 4. (xv.) Holy Thursday, the 
3d of Sivan, May 17th — His Tenth and Last Aj>pearance, to the Apos- 
tles at Jerusalem — Promise of the Holy Spirit — He leads them out to 



348 



The Resurrection and Ascension. 



Chap. XII. 



Bethany, and ascends to heaven — The angels promise His second 
coming — The Apostles return to Jerusalem. § 5. St. John's conclusion 
of the Gospel narrative. 



§ 1. Sunday the 11t7i of JVisan {April 8th). 
Lord's day. " Easter Day." 

" Oh ! day of days ! shall hearts set free 
No minstrel rapture find for thee ? 
Thou art the Sun of other days — 
They shine by giving back thy rays."' 



The First 



As the resurrection of Christ is the great fact, so the day of its 
occurrence is the great clay of Christianity. From the time 
of the Apostles its weekly return has been called by the name 
of the Lord's Day ; 2 and to this epoch of the new creation of 
all things, marked by the new life of Christ, all the permanent 
sancity of the primeval Sabbath was transferred. 3 

Great difficulties have been found in making out the history 
of the day from the four Gospels ; 4 but these difficulties will 
yield to a careful study, based on the principle that each 
Evangelist wrote with a special purpose, and from special 
sources of information. It does not belong to our work to 
attempt a critical discussion of their several statements; 5 but 
to give the result of such discussion in the most probable order 
of those appearances of Jesus to his disciples, which satisfied 
them that " the Lord was risen indeed." 

i. The Resurrection itself is related only by St. Matthew : — 
" Behold, there was a great earthquake : for the angel of the 
Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the 
stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was 
like lightning, and his raiment white as snow : and for fear of 
him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men." G That 
this account was derived, in part at least, from one or more 
of the Roman soldiers, professing afterward that belief which 
such a scene ought to have compelled, is probable from the 
acquaintance which the same Evangelist shows with the fact 
that they were at first bribed to give out the absurd story, that 
Roman soldiers had slept on duty, and while asleep had some- 



1 Christian Year : Easter Day. 

2 Rev. i. 20. 

3 This is not the place to vindicate 
the doctrine of the Lord's Day. The 
sacred observance of the first day p/ 
the week is seen in such passages as 
John xx. 26, Acts xx. 7, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. 



4 To which must be added the 
statement of St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 4-7 

5 The argument is fully stated by 
Dr. Robinson, in his Harmony, and in 
the Bibliotheca Sacra, 18-15, pp. 162, 
foil. 

6 Matt, xxviii. 2-4. 



A.D. 30. Visit of the Women to the Sepulchre. 349 

how come to know that the body was stolen by the disciples. 7 
But yet it may be doubted whether this is not one of the cases, 
in which the sacred writers were taught, as Paul declares him- 
self to have been taught this very fact, " not of man, but by 
the revelation of Jesus Christ." 8 

The time of the resurrection is stated by St. Mark as " early 
on the first day of the week," 9 which began from the sunset 
of the evening before. It had already taken place when the 
first visit was paid to the sepulchre, " while it was yet dark," 10 
as it began to dawn." 11 The portion, however brief, of this 
day (according to Jewish reckoning) that Jesus remained in 
the tomb is reckoned as one day, like the brief interval between 
his burial and the Friday's sunset, and thus he remained three 
days in the earth. 12 

ii. Visit of the Women to the Sepulchre. The Jewish cus- 
tom of resuming the occupations of common life the moment 
the Sabbath's sun had set, had enabled the two Marys to pur- 
chase on that evening the spices needed to complete the em- 
balmment which Nicodeinus had hastily performed. At the 
approach of dawn they came to the sepulchre, with certain 
other women, among whom was Joanna, to perform this pious 
service, wondering, as they went along, how they could roll 
away the great stone from its mouth. They reached the sep- 
ulchre at sunrise and found the stone removed ; and entering 
they saw that the body of Jesus was gone. 13 

iii. Mary Magdalene carries the news to Peter and John, 
The ardent love of Mary Magdalene prompted her at once to 
run and tell Peter and John of the trick that she supposed 
had been played by the enemies of Christ in removing his 
body beyond the reach of his disciples. 14 

iv. Vision of an Angel to the Women in the Sepulchre. 
Meanwhile the other women had entered the recesses of the 

7 Malt, xxviii. 11-15. Jonah i. 17. "The phrase,'' says 

8 Gal. i. 12 : comp. 1 Cor. xv. 3. Dr. Robinson, 'Ms doubtless equiva- 
D Mark xvi. 9. ! lent to the Greek vvx9r)[iepov, a day 

10 John xx. 1. and night of twenty-four hours. But 

11 Matt, xxviii. 1. the Hebrew form, three days and three 
1 Matt. xii. 40, xvi. 21, xx. 19, nights, was likewise used generally 

xxvii. G3 ; Mark viii. 31, ix. 31, x. and indefinitely for threedays simply ; 

34; Luke ix. 22, xviii. 33 ; John ii. as is obvious from 1 Sam. xii. 13, 

19, etc. The difficulty of the state- and the circumstances there nar- 

ment in Matt. xii. 40, that Jesus rated." 

should be "three days and three 13 Matt, xxviii. 1 ; Mark xvi. 1-4; 

nights" in the sepulchre — the only Luke xxiv. 1-3, 10; John xx. 1, 2. 

place in which that form of expres- " John xx. 2. Throughout the 

sion occurs — is explained from the whole narrative, John speak.- of the 

fact that Christ is here quoting from events witnessed by himself. 



350 The Resurrection and Ascension. Chap. XII 

rock-hewn sepulchre, and there they saw an angel sitting on 
the right side, in the form of a young man in a long white 
robe, who told them that Christ had risen and woulo. meet 
his disciples in Galilee, with other words of comfort and en- 
couragement. 15 Fear at the vision, and joy at the tidings, 
joined to hasten the "flight of the women from the sepulchre, 
that they might carry the news to the disciples. 

v r First appearance of Jesus — to the Women on their re- 
turn from the Sepulchre. Their hasty course was stayed 
by the appearance and greeting of Jesus himself. They fell 
down to worship him, and received from his own lips the 
same message that the angel had given them. 16 The Apostles 
and other disciples received the intelligence " as idle tales," 
not being yet ready to believe the truth. 17 

vi. Visit of Peter and John to the Sepulchre. Luke speaks 
of the Eleven (a common formula for the body of the Apos- 
tles at this period) as receiving these tidings from the women, 
and that so as to imply that they had re-assembled from their 
flight, and were waiting to see what would happen on this day. 
But it is evident from John, that both Peter and John himself 
were away from the rest, probably at the latter's house, where 
John would naturally remain to comfort his new-found moth- 
er, and where his friend,- disgraced in the eyes of the other dis- 
ciples, would find a refuge for his remorse. 18 To them Mary 
had brought word that the sepulchre was empty ; and, while 
the other women were giving their fuller tidings to the rest 
of the Apostles, Peter and John ran to the sepulchre to see 
for themselves. We trace something of the peculiar charac- 
ter of each in the beautifully simple narrative of John. 19 The 
ardent affection of " the disciple whom Jesus loved " carried 
him first to the sepulchre : he looked in and saw the grave- 
clothes, but hesitated to enter : while Peter, coming up, at 
once went in and saw the linen clothes lying as they had been 
left, and the napkin that had been about the head of Jesus 

15 Matt, xxviii. 5-8 ; Mark xvi. 5-8 ; according to the view that Mark 
Luke xxiv. 4-8. St. Lake, in speak- wrote what he learned chiefly from 
ing of two angels, evidently puts into St. Peter ; for it was Mary Magda- 
one this and the subsequent vision of lene that brought to Peter, with John, 
angels to Mary Magdalene, which is the first tidings of the resurrection, 
mentioned onlv bv St. John. " Luke xxiv. 9-10. 

16 Matt only, xxviii. 9, 10. Mark 18 So John says that, after their 
and Luke both relate the return of visit to the sepulchre, they return- 
the women, omitting the appearance ed "to their own homey John xx. 
of Christ. The former adds that he 10. 

appeared first to Mary Magdalene. : 19 John xx. 3-10 : conip. Luke 
This is just what might be expected, xxiv. 12. 



A.D. 30. Appearances after his Resurrection. 351 

folded together by itself. 20 John then entered and saw the 
same spectacle; and while Peter only wondered, 21 John be* 
lieved ; for, as he himself takes care to tell us, the disciples 
had not yet understood the prophecy of His resurrection. 23 

" Reason and Faith at once set out 
To search the Saviour's tomb : 
Faith faster runs, but waits without, 

As fearing to presume, 
Till Reason enter in, and trace 
Christ's relics round the holy place — 
'Here lay his limbs, and here his sacred head, 
And who was by, to make his new-forsaken bed?' 

"Both wonder — one believes. But while 
They muse on all at home, 
No thought can tender Love 23 beguile 

From Jesus' grave to roam. 
Weeping she stays till he appear — • 
Her witness first the Church must hear : 
All joy to souls that can rejoice 
With her at earliest call of his dear gracious voice." 

vii. Second appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene at 
the Sepulchre. While Peter and John returned home, Mar}-, 
who had followed them back to the sepulchre, stood by its 
entrance, as the words just quoted have described. Looking 
into the sepulchre as she wept, she saw two angels sitting, 
at the head and the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 
To their inquiry why she wept, she answered, " Because they 
have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have 
laid him ;" and she was turning away, to leave the sepulchre 
in despair, when she saw Jesus standing before her, though 
she knew him not, even when he asked her why she wept. 
Taking him for the keeper of the garden, she earnestly en- 
treated him to tell her whither he had removed the body. 
The one word, " Mary" from the lips of Jesus, recalled her to 
herself, and turning so as to have a full view of him for the 
first time, she replied, " Rabboni !" that is, "Master!" and 
would have embraced him. But, with the mysterious injunc- 

£0 The minuteness of this record j In this remarkable phrase the Evan- 
seems to be intended as a proof that gelist points, not to Christ's own say- 
the body could not have been stolen ings, but to some passage of the O. 
by the disciples ; for they would have , T. ; and such we find in Ps. xvi. 10, 
carried off the grave-clothes with it \ as interpreted by Peter in Acts ii. 
in their haste. 125-31. 

21 Luke xxiv. 12. 23 Mary Magdalene. 

23 "They knew not the Scripture.'" \ 24 Chris tianYear : St. Thomas's Day 



352 



The Resurrection and Ascension. 



Chap. XII. 



tion, " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Fa- 
ther," he sent her to forewarn his brethren of his ascension. 
But even at this second testimony the disciples remained 
incredulous. 25 

viii. Third appearance of Jesus — to St. Peter. St. Paul 
states, immediately after the fact of our Lord's resurrection, 
" that he was seen of Cephas," before he appeared to the oth- 
er Apostles. 26 This appearance is also mentioned incidentally, 
but very emphatically, by St. Luke, in connection with the 
journey to Emmaus. 27 

ix. The Journey to Emmaus — our LorcVs fourth appear- 
ance. This is briefly mentioned by St. Mark ; 28 but the deep- 
ly interesting narrative of St. Luke 29 gives us a view of the 
disciples' state of mind on this memorable day. Two of them, 
Cleopas 30 and another, left the city after the visits paid to the 
sepulchre by the women and by Peter and John, and walked 
to Emmaus, a village about seven miles from Jerusalem. 31 
Their only object seems to have been, to talk freely with each 
other respecting the bearing of the recent events on the 
question of the Messiahship of Jesus ; 32 and the doubtful 
result of their discussions is expressed in the exclamation, 
" But we trusted that it had been he which should have re- 
deemed Israel !" As they were thus engaged, Jesus himself 
joined them ; but a spell was upon their eyes, 33 so that they 
did not know him. Every reader of the Gospel is familiar 
with what followed, — the statement of their anxious reason- 
ings ; his rebuke of their ignorance and unbelief, and his ex- 
position of the Scripture which foretold his sufferings and 
glory ; their pressing him to stay with them at the village , 
and his being made known to them by blessing and breaking 
the bread at their evening meal. They hastened back to Je- 
rusalem, and found the Apostles assembled with other disciples 
at their evening meal, 34 in a strangely mingled state of doubt 
and wonder ; for, while some met them with the news, " The 



25 John xx. 11-18; Mark xvi. 0-11. 

26 1 Cor. xv. 5. 27 Luke xxiv. 34. 
:8 Mark xvi. 12, 13. 

29 Luke xxiv. 13-35. 

30 This Cleopas must not be con- 
founded with Clopas, the husband of 
Mary the sister of our Lord's mother. 

31 "Sixty stadia." in what direction 
we arc not told. The idea of its 
identity with the Emmaus (afterward 
called Nicopolis) on the border of the 
Philistine plain, and about 20 miles 



from Jerusalem — held by Eusebius 
and Jerome, and defended by Dr. 
Robinson — is quite inconsistent with 
the sacred narrative. See Diet, of 
the Bible, art. Emmaus. 

32 The word avZ,r}Tth>, in ver. 15, 
implies anxious discussion. 

33 Literally " their eyes were mas- 
tered," iKoarovvro. Hence the phrase 
in Mark, " He appeared in another 
(i. '., an altered) form." 

31 Mark xvi. 14. 



A.D. 30. 



Appearances to the Disciples. 



353 



Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon," their own 
full account of his converse with them was still reee.ved with 
unbelief. 

x. Our Lord's fifth appearance — to the assembled Apos- 
tles, except Thomas. It was at this very crisis of their per- 
plexity, that Jesus crowned his separate appearances by a 
manifestation of himself to the Apostles, and those disciples 
who were with them. His sudden appearance in their midst, 
the doors of the room being shut fast for fear of the Jews, 
alarmed them with the idea that they saw a spirit, though he 
greeted them with the words, " Peace be unto you !" But 
he called them to feel his body, and showed them the wounds 
in his hands and feet and side. As they still doubted, he ate 
food before them ; and then he opened their minds to see the 
fulfillment of all that had been spoken of him in the Law, the 
Prophets, and the Psalms ; and to know their own mission as 
the witnesses of his resurrection, and the preachers of repent- 
ance and remission of sins in his name to all nations, beginning 
at Jerusalem. Then by the sign of breathing on them (liter- 
ally suspiration), he indicated the conferring of that gift of 
the Holy Spirit, which was actually to descend upon them 
after his ascension, and for which he bade them to wait at Je- 
rusalem ; and he gave them the authority of remitting and re- 
taining sins. 35 This " great commission " was repeated after- 
ward ; but Mark, who mentions only three of our Lord's ap- 
pearances, and this as the last, refers to this occasion also the 
promise of the power of working miracles. 36 Such was our 
Lord's last appearance to his disciples on the day of his res- 
urrection. 

§ 2, Sunday, the 2Uh of JVisan, April 1 6th. — 
(xi.) Christ's second appearance to the assembled disciples, 
with Thomas — the sixth in all. Facts are sometimes of them- 
selves strong arguments ; and such is our finding the disciples 
again assembled on the first day of the following week, and 
our Lord again appearing in the midst of them. Their mere 
meeting may have been continued from day to day, but our 
Saviour's blessing this meeting with his presense goes far to 
mark the Lord's Day as sacred. It was then that the incred- 
ulous Thomas was taught by the evidence of his own senses, 
not only to share his brethren's faith, but to go beyond them 



35 The nature of this authority is 
seen in the cases of Ananias and Sap- 
phira, Simon Magus, and perhaps 
Elymas the soreorcr. 



36 Mark xvi. 14-18; Luke xxiv. 
36-49; John xx. 19-23; .1 Cor. xv. 
5, " then of the twelve." St. Matt 
does not mention this appearance. 



354 The Resurrection and Ascension. Chap. XII. 

by recognizing in the Lord's resurrection a proof of his di* 
vinity. But Jesus did not grant the proof that Thomas re- 
quired, without pronouncing a higher blessing upon those 
who are content to believe on the testimony of others. 37 

§ 3. (xii.) Third appearance of Jesus to the Apostles (seven 
of them) by the Lake of Galilee — the seventh in all. The 
Evangelists now cease to specify days. St. Matthew tells us 
that the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, as they had 
been commanded when first the resurrection was announced 
to them ; 38 but their meeting with Jesus in the mountain he 
had appointed them must have been subsequent to that morn- 
ing by the Lake of Galilee, of which St. John has given us so 
full and touching an account. 39 Seven of the apostles — Peter, 
Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two others who 
are not named, had returned to their avocations as fishermen, 
when Jesus revealed himself to them in a manner strikingly 
similar to that of their former calling, by the sign of a mirac- 
ulous draught of fishes. The one striking difference, that now 
the net did not break, showed the coming of the time when 
they were to be indeed " fishers of men." It was then that 
our Lord drew from Peter the avowal of his love, repeated 
thrice as the revocation of his threefold denial, and restored 
him to his place among the disciples by the special commis- 
sion, also thrice repeated, " Feed my sheep !" adding the 
prediction of his martyrdom, but rebuking his affectionate cu- 
riosity concerning the fate of John. The saying, " If I will 
that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ?" is a purely 
hypothetical case, put to repel a curious desire to know what 
he reserved to his own appointment. 

xiii. The eighth ap>pearance of Jesus — to the great body of 
his disciples in Galilee. St. Matthew continues the state- 
ment just quoted by saying that the eleven disciples went 
out to a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus had appointed them ; 
and when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubt- 
ed. 40 Though Matthew mentions only the eleven, he can 
scarcely mean the last statement to apply to them, after the 
removal of the last remains of their incredulity in the case of 
Thomas. It is evident, from comparing the Gospels, that, in 
several statements which refer to the body of the disciples, 
the eleven are particularly named, because they were specially 
the appointed witnesses of Christ's resurrection. All that we 
see of their life during this interval confirms the view that the 

37 John xx. 24-29. | " John xxi. 1-24. 

38 Matt, xxviii. 1G. 40 Matt, xxviii. 16, 17, 



A.D. 30. Last Interview and Ascension. 355 

Apostles were in no way separated from the other disciples. At 
the beginning of the last chapter of Matthew, the message, first 
of the angel and then of Christ himself, is to " the disciples " 
and " his brethren," not to the Apostles only ; and the Evangel- 
ist clearly records this meeting in Galilee as the fulfillment of 
that message. There is, therefore, no difficulty in identifying 
this interview with the appearance of Jesus to " above five 
hundred brethren at once," mentioned by St. Paul, who appeals 
to the fact that some of them were still living when he 
wrote. 41 This number agrees well with that assigned by St. 
Luke to the Church at Jerusalem; 42 for as these were one 
hundred and twenty, and as the greater number of our Lord's 
converts were made in Galilee, five hundred and upward is 
a reasonable number for those of Galilee, with the Apostles, 
and such others as were able to accompany them from Juda3a. 

This then was the great interview of Jesus with his disci- 
ples, of which he had spoken even before his death, 43 and to 
which they were summoned from the moment of his resurrec- 
tion. Its scene was Galilee, where Jesus had commenced his 
course of public teaching and where his life had been chiefly 
spent ; and as he had opened his public ministry on a mountain, 
by the discourse which set forth the conditions of disciple- 
ship, so he closed it on a mountain, by the commission which 
he based upon his own unlimited authority, " All power is 
given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and 
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : 
and lo, I am with you always unto the end of the world." 44 
It follows from the above argument that this commission 
was given to the disciples, as such, and not to the Apostles 
only ; and this is true also of the promise of miraculous pow- 
ers, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, which are recorded re-, 
spectively by Mark and John. S>< \ 

xiv. Chrises ninth appearance — to James (the Less). Im- 
mediately after mentioning this interview, St. Paul adds the 
vords " after that, he was seen of James," a special notice, 
which agrees well with the importance assigned to James, as 
being, like Peter and John, one of the " pillars " of the 
Church. 45 This appearance may be referred to Jerusalem, with 
the, more probability, as James was not one among the Apos- 
tles at the Lake of Galilee. Nor does it seem unlikely that 

41 1 Cor. xv. 6. 42 Acts i. 15. \ 44 Matt, xxviii. 18-20. 

43 Matt. xxvi. 32. I 45 1 Cor. xv. 7 : Gal. ii. 9 



356 The Resurrection and Ascension. Chap. XIX 

it was one of several appearances to individual disciples, omit 
ted by the Evangelists, who have recorded only those needful 
to establish the great facts of Christ's resurrection, and of his 
commission to the Apostles. 

§ 4. (xv.) Our Lord's last interview icith the Apostles and 
his Ascension — his tenth appearance. The last scene of all 
was reserved for the eyes of the Apostles only, as the specially 
appointed witnesses of Christ's resurrection and ascension. 
St. Peter lays stress upon the fact that, when God had raised 
Jesus from the dead, " he shewed him, openly, not to all the 
people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, 
who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead." 4e 
The superiority of such testimony to any which could have 
been furnished by a more public display of the risen Saviour 
to all the people has been ably demonstrated by Bishop Hors- 
ley. 47 Neither Matthew nor John relates our Saviour's ascen- 
sion, though the latter gives, in the Apocalypse, a glowing de- 
scription of his state of glory. Mark simply says that " he 
was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of 
God." 48 St. Luke describes the whole scene, briefly in his 
Gospel, and fully in the Acts of the Apostles. 49 

The whole time during which Jesus " shewed himself after 
his passion by many infallible proofs " was forty days™ a 
period which has evidently some mystical signification, being 
the same as the time spent by Moses and by Elijah in Mount 
Horeb, and by Christ himself in the wilderness of temptation, 
and corresponding to the number of years that the people had 
wandered in the Desert. As they passed an appointed interval 
of trial between their baptism to Moses in the Red Sea and 
their entrance on the promised land, so our Lord himself was 
subjected to a forty days' trial of his faith and patience, be- 
tween his baptism and his showing to Israel ; and again, after 
his final baptism of suffering a like interval was interposed 
before he entered into glory, to try the faith of his disciples 
and to work in them full conviction of the great truth they 
had to preach. In what secret retirement he took up hia 
abode during these forty olays we are not told : all that con- 
cerns us is the time he spent with his disciples, " speaking 
of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." 

At last, on the fortieth day, &1 the disciples were assembled 



46 Acts x. 40, 41. 

47 Sermons on the Resurrection of 
Vhiist. 

48 Mark xvi. 19. 



4& Luke xxiv. 50-53; Acts i. 1-12. 



50 Acts i. 3. 

51 Thitrsday, the 25th of Jyar, 
Holy Thursday," or "Ascension 

Day,' 7 " May 18th, in a.d. 30 



A.D. 30. 



The Ascension. 



357 



with Jesus at Jerusalem, it would seem by a special appoint- 
ment, 62 and he commanded them not to depart thence till they 
received the promise of the Father, the baptism with the Holy 
Ghost. After rebuking their desire to know whether the 
time was come for him to restore the kingdom to Israel, he 
promised them power, by that baptism of the Spirit, for the 
work they had to do for* his name in Jerusalem, Judaea, and 
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 53 

Either during or after this conversation, he led them out — 
over the very ground he had traversed with them six weeks 
before, when he entered the city to suffer — as far as Bethany, 
on the further slope of the Mount of Olives, and so out of view 
of the city ; 63b and there, as with uplifted hands he gave them 
his parting blessing, a cloud interposed between him and 
them, like the chariot and horses of fire that separated Elijah 
from Elisha ; and upborne on this aerial car, he was wafted 
from their sight through the vault of heaven. 54 This was all 
they saw ; but the inspired Psalmist had long before described 
the unseen glories of Christ's ascension : 

"The chariots of God are twenty thousand, 
Even thousands, even thousands of angels : 
The Lord is among them 
As in Sinai, in the holy place. 
Thou hast ascended on high, 
Thou hast led captivity captive : 
Thou hast received gifts for men ; 
Yea, for the rebellious also, that 
Jehovah God might dwell among them." 65 

What those spiritual gifts were and how they were soon dis- 
tributed to the Church is explained by the Apostle Paul. 50 

Meanwhile the disciples scarcely recollected that this was 
but what he had himself foretold : — " What and if ye shall 
see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before ?" 57 They 
stood gazing up after him. as if he had been lost forever, till 
they were awakened from their stupor by the appearance of 
fr\vo angels standing by them, and declaring that this same 
Jesus, who was taken from them into heaven, should so come 
in like manner as they had seen him go into heaven : — words 
which exclude any other than the final advent of our Lord, and 



• 2 Acts i. 4 : comp. v. 6. 

63 Acts i. 4-8. 

63 t> On the site of our Lord's As- 
cension, see p. 339. 

54 This is manifestly all that is ex- 
pressed hy iie heaven Covpavuc) of 



the narrative, which has the same 
sense in Gen. i. 1, and many other 
passages ; the proper literal sense of 
the English word. 

55 Ps. Ixviii. 17, 18. 

66 Eph ; iv. 8, 9. "John vi. G2. 



358 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XII. 



teach us that he shall then be seen descending from the riven 
sky as plainly and as unexpectedly as he passed into it from 
their eyes. With this agrees his own warning of" the sign 
of the Son of Man, coming in the clouds of heaven, with power 
and great glory," and the words of the final Scripture prophe- 
cy, " Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see 
him." 

Having worshiped their glorified Lord, they returned from 
the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem with great joy ; and, while 
expecting the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, they spent 
their time continually in the Temple, praising and blessing 
God. 58 

§ 5. We can not more fitly conclude this narrative of our 
Saviour's life on earth, — in which we have aimed to bring into 
one view the records of the Four Evangelists, with as much 
brevity as was consistent with the omission of no important 
fact, — than by calling attention to the two points insisted on 
by St. John :— first, that we have only a small part of our Lord's 
sayings and doings in the presence of his disciples, for the 
world itself could hardly have contained the record of the 
whole ; but, finally, that all we do possess has been written with 
this one sole object, " That we might believe that Jesus is the 
Chheist, the Son of God, and that, believing, we might have 

LIFE THROUGH HIS NAME." &9 

« 8 Luke xxiv. 50-53 ; Acts i. 1-12. m John xx. 30, 31 ; xxi. 25. 



NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



MR. LEWIN'S SCHEME OF THE 

CHRONOLOGY OE OUR 

LORD'S LIFE. 

In the elaborate work of Mr. Lew- 
in, Fasti Sacri, or a Key to the 
Chronology of the New Testament, a 
chronological scheme is given, dif- 
fering from the views of most previ- 
ous writers, and from the system fol- 
lowed in our work. Without re- 
opening the discussion, which would 



far overpass our limits, the care be- 
stowed upon every detail of the sub- 
ject by so eminent a writer demands 
a brief statement of the results at 
which he has arrived. 

B.C. G (about Feb. 22). Birth of John the 
Baptist ; the time of Elisabeth's 
conception being inferred from 
the calculation that the course of 
Abia went out of office on May 22, 
b.o. 7. 

B.C. 6 (about August 1). The Nativity op 
Jesus Cueist; nearly two years 
before the death of Herod (Matt. 
ii. 1G). 



Chap. XII. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



359 



The Census under Sentius Saturni- 
mis, who displaced Varus before 
September 2. u.c. C. 
B.C. 4. April 1. Death of Herod at Jeri- 
cho. 
Return of the Holy Family from 
Egypt. 
A.D. 6. Banishment of Archelaus. 
Cyrenius prefect of Syria. 
A.D. 7. Completion of the Census of Cyre- 
nius. 
Cubist at the Passovek (April 
9th).. 
A.D. 2S (about Aug. or Sept.). Preaching of 
John the Baptist, in the first 
year of the- Sabbatic cycle, in the 
sixth year of which our Lord's 
Ministry closed. 
A.D. 29 (February). Baptism of Jesus. Age 
33.* 
(February to March). The Tempta- 
tion. 
A.D. 29-A.D.33. The Duration of Christ's 
Ministry, from Passover to Pass- 
over, four full years, in accord- 
ance with Luke xiii. 7. 
A.D.29. First Passovek, ending April 2. 

Opening of our Lord's Ministry at 

Jerusalem. 
Imprisonment of John. 
A.D. 29 (Autumn). Beginning of Christ's 
Ministry in Galilee. Its duration 
— 3 years and G months. 
First Circuit in Galilee, including 
(about October) his rejection at 
Nazareth, t 
A.D. 29 to A.D. 30 (Spring"). Second Gali- 
lean Circuit: duration — four or 
five months. 
A.D. 30 (Spring). Third Galilean Circuit. 
April '22. The bevrepoirpwrov ad/3- 
ftaTov, i. c., the first Sabbath of 
the 2d month (Jyar). 
May 27. The Pentecost, this year on 
a Sabbath. The "Feast " of John 
v. 
Jesus returns to Galilee. 
Sermon on the Mount. 

* Mr. Lewin gives this latitude to the about thirty 
(iitrtl) of Luke iii. 23. 

f Mr. Lewin's authority for this date is in the fact 
that Isaiah lxi. was the appointed lesson of the daily 
service about the Feast of Tabernacles, which in this 
year fell on October 11- 



Foxtrth Galilean Circuit. 

(Autumn). Return to Capernaum 
A.D. 31 (about April). Death of John the 
Baptist. 

April 19 (10 of Nisan). Feeding of 
the Five Thousand. 

April 21. The Discourse of John vi. : 
on the Sabbath before the Passo- 
ver. 

Sept. 20. Feast of Tabernacles 
(John vii. 1). 

Sept. 23 (about). Jesus reaches Je- 
rusalem. 

He withdraws, probably to Betha- 
bara. 

Nov. 28 to Dec. 5. Feast of Dedica- 
tion (John x). 

Jesus returned to Bethabara (John 
x. 31). 
A.D. 32 (Beginning). Death and raising of 
Lazarus. 

Jesus retires to Ephraim, and thence 
to Csesarea Philippi. 

Return to Capernaum. Tribute 
Money. 

Passover, April 13. Beginning of 
our Lord's last circuit, occupying a 
year, and terminating at Jerusa- 
lem. 

(Autumn.) The warning to flee out 
of Galilee. 
A.D 33. (Spring.) The circuit resumed from 
West to East, along the borders 
of Samaria and Galileo, in the di- 
rection of Peraea, and so across the 
Jordan. 

Recrosses the Jordan to Jericho 

Friday, March 27. Arrives at Beth- 
any, six days before the Passover. 

Saturday, March 28. Rest at Betha- 
ny on the Sabbath evening. Sup. 
per at the house of Simon. 

Palm Sunday, March 29. Jesus en- 
ters Jerusalem. 

Monday, March 30 — Thursday, April 
2. As in our narrative. 

Thursday, April 2 — Evening. The 
Passover and Lord's Supper. 

Good Friday, April 3. The Crucifix- 
ion. Jesus expires at 3 p.m. 

Easter Sunday, April 5. The Res- 
urrection. 

Thursday, May 14. The Ascension. 

Sunday, May 24. Day of Pentecost 



APPENDIX TO BOOK II 



THE FOUR GOSPELS. 1 

f L Their genuineness. § 2. Their relation to each other. § 3. Theories of their origin. 
§ 4. Probability that they were based on Apostolic preaching. § 5. Inspiration of the 
Evangelists. § C. Table of the Harmony of the Four Gospels. 

§ 1. The name Gospel 2 is applied to the four inspired histories of the 
life and teaching of Christ contained in the New Testament. It may be 
fairly said that the genuineness of these four narratives rests upon better 
evidence than that of any other ancient writings. They were all composed 
during the latter half of the first century : those of St. Matthew and St. 
Mark some years before the destruction of Jerusalem ; that of St. Luke 
probably about a.d. G4 ; and that of St. John toward the close of the cen- 
tury. Before the end of the second century, there is abundant evidence 
that the Four Gospels, as one collection, were generally used and accepted. 

§ 2. On comparing these four books one with another, a peculiar diffi- 
culty claims attention, which has had much to do with the controversy as 
to their genuineness. In the fourth Gospel the narrative coincides with 
that of the other three in a few passages onl}\ Putting aside the account 
of the Passion, there are only three facts which John relates in common 
with the other Evangelists. Two of these are, the feeding of the five thou- 
sand, and the storm on the Sea of Galilee (ch. vi.), which appear to be in- 
troduced in connection with the discourse that arose out of the miracle, re- 
lated by John alone. The third is the anointing of His feet by Mary ; 
and it is worthy of notice that the narrative of John recalls something of 
each of the other three : the actions of the woman are drawn from Luke, 
the ointment and its value are described in Mark, and the admonition to 
Judas appears in Matthew ; and John combines in his narrative all these 
particulars. While the three present the life of Jesus in Galilee, John fol- 
lows him into Judaea ; nor should we know, but for him, that our Lord 
had journeyed to Jerusalem at the prescribed feasts. Only one discourse 
of our Lord that was delivered in Galilee, that in the 6th chapter, is record- 
ed by John. The disciple whom Jesus loved had it put into his mind to 
write a Gospel which should more expressly than the others set forth Jesus 
as the Incarnate Word of God : if he also had in view the beginnings of 
the errors of Cerinthus and others before him at the time, as Irena;us and 
Jerome assert, the polemical purpose is quite subordinate to the dogmatic. 

1 The following account of the Four Gos- j = From god and spell, Ang-Sax. good mes- 
pcls is taken, with some omissions, from j sage or news, which is a translation of the 
Archbishop Thompson's article in the Diet. Greek cvayyeAtoi/t 
of the Bible. ' I 



Book II. The Four Gospels. 361 

He does not war against a temporary error, but preaches for all time that 
Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, in order that believing we may have 
life through his name. Now many of the facts omitted by St. John and 
recorded by the rest are such as would have contributed most directly to 
this great design ; why then are they omitted ? The received explanation 
is the only satisfactory one, namely, that John, writing last, at the close of 
the first century, had seen the other Gospels, and purposely abstained from 
writing anew what they had sufficiently recorded. 

In the other three Gospels there is a great amount of agreement. If we 
suppose the history that they contain to be divided into sections, in 42 of 
these all the three narratives coincide, 12 more are given by Matthew and 
Mark only, 5 by Mark and Luke only, and 14 by Matthew and Luke. To 
these must be added 5 peculiar to Matthew, 2 to Mark, and 9 to Luke ; 
and the enumeration is complete. But this applies only to general coinci- 
dence as to the facts narrated : the amount of verbal coincidence, that is, 
the passages either verbally the same, or coinciding in the use of 
many of the same words, is much smaller. "By far the larger portion," 
says Professor Andrews Norton (Genuineness, i. p. 240, 2d ed.), " of 
this verbal agreement is found in the recital of the words of others, 
and particularly of the words of Jesus. Thus, in Matthew's Gospel, 
the passages verbally coincident with one or both of the other two Gos- 
pels amount to less than a sixth part of its contents ; and of these about 
seven-eighths occur in the recital of the words of others, and only about 
one-eighth in what, by way of distinction, I may call mere narrative, in 
which the Evangelist, speaking in his own person, was unrestrained in the 
choice of his expressions. In Mark, the proportion of coincident passages 
to the whole contents of the Gospel is about one-sixth, of which not one- 
fifth occurs in the narrative. Luke has still less agreement of expression 
with the other Evangelists. The passages in which it is found amount only 
to about a tenth part of his Gospel ; and but an inconsiderable portion of it 
appears in the narrative — less than a twentieth part. These proportions 
should be further compared with those which the narrative part of each 
Gospel bears to that in which the words of others are professedly repeated. 
Matthew's narrative occupies about one-fourth of his Gospel, Mark's about 
one-half, and Luke's about one-third. It may easily be computed, there- 
fore, that the proportion of verbal coincidence found in the narrative part 
of each Gospel, compared with Avhat exists in the other part, is about in the 
following ratios : in Matthew as one to somewhat more than two, in Mark 
as one to four, and in Luke as one to ten." 

Without going minurely into the examination of examples, which would 
be desirable if space permitted, the leading facts connected with the subject 
may be thus summed up : — The verbal and material agreement of the 
three first Evangelists is such as does not occur in any other authors who 
have written independently of one another. The verbal agreement is 
greater where the spoken words of others are cited than where facts are re- 
corded; and greatest in quotations of the words of our Lord. But in some 
leading events, as in the call of the four first disciples, that of Matthew, 
and the Transfiguration, the agreement even in expression is remarkable : 
there are also narratives where there is no verbal harmony in the outset, 
but only in the crisis or emphatic part of the story (Matt, viii. 3=Mark i. 
41=Luke v. 13. and Matt. xiv. 19, 20 = Mark vi. 41-43=Luke ix. 1G, 17). 

Q 



362 The Four Gospels. Appendix. 

The narratives of our Lord's early life, as given by St. Matthew and St. 
Luke, have little in common ; while St. Mark does not include that part 
of the history in his plan. The agreement in the narrative portions of the 
Gospels begins with the Baptism of John, and reaches its highest point in 
the account of the Passion of our Lord and the facts that preceded it ; so 
that a direct ratio might almost be said to exist between the amount of 
agreement and the nearness of the facts related to the Passion. After this 
event, in the account of his burial and resurrection, the coincidences are 
few. The language of all three is Greek, with Hebrew idioms: the He- 
braisms are most abundant in St. Mark, and fewest in St. Luke. In quo- 
tations from the Old Testament, the Evangelists, or two of them, some- 
times exhibit a verbal agreement, although they differ from the Hebrew and 
from the Septuagint version (Matt. iii. 3 = Mark. i. 3 = Luke iii. 4. Matt. 
iv. 10=Luke iv. 8. Matt. xi. 10=Mark i. 2=Lukevii. 27, etc). Except 
as to 24 verses, the Gospel of Mark contains no principal facts which are 
not found in Matthew and Luke, but he often supplies details omitted by 
them, and these are often such as would belong to the graphic account of 
an eye-witness. There are no cases in which Matthew and Luke exactly 
harmonize where Mark does not also coincide with them. In several 
places the words of Mark have something in common with each of the other 
narratives, so as to form a connecting link between them, where their 
words slightly differ. The examples of verbal agreement between Mark 
and Luke are not so long or so numerous as those between Matthew and 
Luke, and Matthew and Mark ; but as to the arrangement of events Mark 
and Luke frequently coincide, where Matthew differs from them. These 
are the leading particulars ; but they are very far from giving a complete 
notion of a phenomenon that is well worthy of that attention and reverent 
study of the sacred text by which alone it can be fully and fairly appre- 
hended. 

These facts exhibit the three Gospels as three distinct records of the life 
and works of the Redeemer, but with a greater amount of agreement than 
thi*ee wholly independent accounts could be expected to exhibit. The 
agreement would be no difficulty, without the differences; it would only 
mark the one divine source from which they are all derived — the Holy 
Spirit, who spake by the prophets. The difference of form and style, with- 
out the agreement, would offer no difficulty, since there may be a substan- 
tial harmony between accounts that differ greatly in mode of expression, and 
the very difference might be a guarantee of independence. The harmony 
and the variety, the agreement and the differences, form together the prob- 
lem with which Biblical critics have occupied themselves for a century and 
a half. 

§ 3. The attempts at a solution are so many, that they can be more easily 
classified than enumerated. The first and most obvious suggestion would 
be that the narrators made use of each other's work. Accordingly many 
have endeavored to ascertain which Gospel is to te regarded as the first ; 
which is copied from the first ; and which is the last, and copied from the 
other two. It is remarkable that each of the six possible combinations has 
found advocates ; and this of itself proves the uncertainty of the theory. 
When we are told by men of research that the Gospel of St. Mark is plain- 
ly founded upon the other two, and again that the Gospel of St. Mark is 
certainly the primitive Gospel, on which the other two arc founded, both 



Book II. The Four Gospels. 363 

sides relying mainly on facts that lie within the compass of the text, we 
<ire not disposed to expect much fruit from the discussion. But the theory 
in its crude form is in itself most improbable; and the wonder is that so 
much time and learning have been devoted to it. It assumes that an 
Evangelist has taken up the work of his predecessor, and without substan- 
tial alteration has made a few changes in form, a few additions and re- 
trenchments, and has then allowed the whole to go forth under his name. 
Whatever order of the three is adopted to favor the hypothesis, the omis- 
sion by the second or third of matter inserted by the first, offers a great 
difficulty ; since it would indicate a tacit opinion that these passages are 
either less useful or of less authority than the rest. The nature of the al- 
terations is not such as we should expect to find in an age little given to 
literary composition, and in writings so simple and unlearned as these are 
admitted to be. The replacement of a word by a synonym neither more 
nor less apt, the omission of a saying in one place and insertion of it in 
another, the occasional transposition of events ; these are not in conformi- 
ty with the habits of a time in which composition was little studied, and 
only practiced as a necessity. Besides, such deviations, which in writers 
wholly independent of each other are only the guarantee of their independ- 
ence, can not appear in those who eopy from each other, without showing a 
certain willfulness — an intention to contradict and alter — that seems quite 
irreconcilable with any view of inspiration. These general objections will 
be found to take a still more cogent shape against any particular form of 
this hypothesis : whether it is attempted to show that the Gospel of St. 
Mark, as the shortest, is also the earliest and primitive Gospel, or that this 
very Gospel bears evident signs of being the latest, a compilation from the 
other two ; or that the order in the canon of Scripture is also the chrono- 
logical order — and all these views have found defenders at n.o distant date 
— the theory that each Evangelist only copied from his predecessor offers 
the same general features, a plausible argument from a few facts, which is 
met by insuperable difficulties as soon as the remaining facts are taken in. 
The supposition of a common original, from which the three Gospels 
were drawn, each with more or less modification, would. naturally occur to 
those who rejected the notion that the Evangelists had copied from each 
other. A passage of Epiphanius has been often quoted in support of this 
(Hares. 51, 6), but the t£ aurrjg rrjg TrrjyrJQ no doubt refers to the inspiring 
Spirit from which all three drew their authority, and not to any earthly 
copy, written or oral, of His divine message. The best notion of that class 
of speculations which would establish a written document as the common 
original of the three Gospels, will be gained perhaps from Bishop Marsh's 
account of Eichhorn's hypothesis, and of his own additions to it (Michaelis, 
vol. iii., Part ii.). It appeared to Eichhorn that the portions which are 
common to all the three Gospels were contained in a certain common docu- 
ment, from which they all drew. Now Eichhorn tries to show, from an ex 
act comparison of passages, that " the sections, whether great or small, 
which are common to St. Matthew and St. Mark but not to St. Luke, and 
at the same time occupy places in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark 
which correspond to each other, were additions made in the copies used by 
St. Matthew and St. Mark, but not in the copy used by St. Luke ; and, in 
like manner, that the sections found in the corresponding places of the Gos- 
pels of St. Mark and St. Luke, but not contained in the Gospel of St. Mat* 



364 The Four Gospels. Appends, 

thew, were additions made in the copies used by St. Mark and St. Luke " 
(p. 192). Thus Eichhorn considers himself entitled to assume that he can 
reconstruct the original document, and also that there must have been four 
other documents to account for the phenomena of the text. Thus he 
makes — 

1. The original document. 

2. An altered copy which St. Matthew used. 

3. An altered copy which St. Luke used. 

4. A third copy, made from the two preceding, used by St. Mark. 

5. A fourth altered copy, used by St. Matthew and St. Luke in common. 
As there is no external evidence, worth considering, that this original or 

any of its numerous copies ever existed, the value of this elaborate hypothe- 
sis must depend upon its furnishing the only explanation, and that a suffi- 
cient one, of the facts of the text. Bishop Marsh, however, finds it neces- 
sary, in order to complete the account of the text, to raise the number of 
documents to eight, still without producing any external evidence for the 
existence of any of them ; and this, on one side, deprives Eichhorn's theory 
of the merit of completeness, and, on the other, presents a much broader 
surface to the obvious objections. He assumes the existence of — 

1. A Hebrew original. 

2. A Greek translation. 

3. A transcript of No. 1, with alterations and additions. 

4. Another, with another set of alterations and additions. 

5. Another, combining both the preceding, used by St. Mark, who also 
used No. 2. 

6. Another, with the alterations and additions of No. 3, and with fur- 
ther additions, used by St. Matthew. 

7. Another, with those of No. 4, and further additions^ised by St. Luke, 
who also used No. 2. 

8. A wholly distinct Hebrew document, in which our Lord's precepts, 
parables, and discourses were recorded, but not in chronological order ; 
used both by St. Matthew and St. Luke. 

To this it is added, that " as the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke con- 
tain Greek translations of Hebrew materials, which were incorporated into 
St. Matthew's Hebrew Gospel, the person who translated St. Matthew's He- 
brew Gospel into Greek frequently derived assistance from the Gospel of 
St. Mark, where he had matter in connection with St. Matthew: and in 
those places, but in those places only, where St. Mark had no matter in 
connection with St. Matthew, he had frequently recourse to St. Luke's Gos- 
pel " (p. 361). One is hardly surprised after this to learn that Eichhorn 
soon after put forth a revised hypothesis (Einleitung in das N. T., 1804), in 
which a supposed Greek translation of a supposed Aramaic original took a con- 
spicuous part ; nor that Hug was able to point out that even the most liber- 
al assumption of written documents had not provided for one case, that of 
the verbal agreement of St. Mark and St. Luke, to the exclusion of St. 
Matthew ; and which, though it is of rare occurrence, would still require, 
on Eichhorn's theory, an additional Greek version. 

It will be allowed that this elaborate hypothesis, whether in the form 
given it by Marsh or by Eichhorn, possesses almost every fault that can be 
charged against an argument of that kind. For every new class of facts, 
a new document must be assumed to have existed ; and Hug's objection 



Bock II. The Four Gospels. 365 

does not really weaken the theory, since the new class of coincidences he men- 
tions only requires a new version of the ''original Gospel," which can be 
supplied on demand. A theory so prolific in assumptions may still stand, 
if it can be proved that no other solution is possible ; but since this can not 
be shown, then we are reminded of the schoolman's caution, Entia non sunt 
multiplicanda prater necessitate m. To assume for every new class of facts 
the existence of another complete edition and recension of the original work, 
is quite gratuitous ; the documents might have been as easily supposed to 
be fragmentary memorials, wrought in by the Evangelists into the web of 
the original Gospel ; or the coincidences might be, as Gratz supposes, 
cases where one Gospel has been interpolated by portions of another. Then 
the "original Gospel" is supposed to have been of such authority as to be 
circulated everywhere : yet so defective, as to require annotation from any 
hand ; so little reverenced, that no hand spared it. If all the Evangelists 
agreed to draw from such a work, it must have been widely, if not universal- 
ly, accepted in the Church ; and yet the work has perished without record. 
Not only has this fate befallen the Aramaic or Hebrew original, but the trans- 
lation and the five or six recensions. But it may well be asked whether the state 
of letters in Palestine at this time was such as to make this constant editing, 
translating, annotating, and enriching of a history a natural and probable 
process. With the independence of the Jews their literature had declined ; 
from the time of Ezi'a and Nehemiah, if a writer here and there arose, his 
works became known, if at all, in Greek translations through the Alexandrine 
Jews. That the period of which we are speaking was for the Jews one of 
very little literary activity, is generally admitted ; and if this applies to all 
classes of the people, it would be true of the humble and uneducated class 
from which the first converts came (Acts iv. 13 ; James ii. 5). Even the 
second law, which grew up after the Captivity, and in which the knowledge 
of the learned class consisted, was handed down by oral tradition, without 
being reduced to writing. The theory of Eichhorn is only probable amid 
a people given to literary habits, and in a class of that people in which edu- 
cation was good and literary activity likely to prevail : the conditions here 
are the very reverse. These are only a few of the objections which may 
be raised, on critical and historical grounds, against the theory of Eichhorn 
and Marsh. 

But it must not be forgotten that this question reaches beyond history and 
criticism, and has a deep theological interest. We are offered here an orig- 
inal Gospel composed by some unknown person; probably not an apostle, 
as Eichhorn admits, in his endeavor to account for the loss of the book. 
This was translated by one equally unknown ; and the various persons into 
whose hands the two documents came, all equally unknown, exercised freely 
the power of altering and extending the materials thus provided. Out of 
such unattested materials the three Evan gelists composed their Gospels. So 
far as they allowed their materials to bind and guide them, so far their 
worth as independent witnesses is lessened. But, according to Eichhorn, 
they all felt bound to admit the whole of the original document, so that it is 
possible to recover it from them by a simple process. As to all the passages, 
then, in which this document is employed, it is not the Evangelist, but an 
anonymous predecessor, to whom we are listening — not Matthew the Apos- 
tle, and Mark the companion of Apostles, and Luke the beloved of the Apos. 
tie Paul, who are affording us the strength of their testimony, but one wit* 



366 The Four Gospels. Appendix. 

ness, whose name no one has thought fit to record. If, indeed, all three 
Evangelists confined themselves to this document, this of itself would be a 
guarantee of its fidelity and of the respect in which it was held ; but no one 
seems to have taken it in hand that did not think himself entitled to amend 
it. Surely serious people would have a right to ask, if the critical objections 
were less decisive, with what view of inspiration such a hypothesis could be 
reconciled. The internal evidence of the truth of the Gospel, in the har 
monious and self-consistent representation of the person of Jesus, and in the 
promises and precepts which meet the innermost needs of a heart stricken 
with the consciousness of sin, would still remain to us. But the wholesome 
confidence with which we now rely on the Gospels as pure, true, and genu- 
ine histories of the life of Jesus, composed by four independent witnesses in- 
spired for that work, would be taken away. Even the testimony of the 
writers of the second century to the universal acceptance of these books 
would be invalidated, from their silence and ignorance about the strange cir- 
cumstances which are supposed to have affected their composition. 

Bibliography. — The English student will find in Bp. Marsh's Trans- 
lation of Michaelis' 's Introd. to the N. T. iii. 2, 1803, an account of Eichhorn's 
earlier theory and of his own. Veysie's Examination of Mr. Marsh's Hy- 
pothesis, 1808, has suggested many of the objections. In Bp. ThirlwalFs 
Translation of Schhiermacher on St. Luke, 1825, Introduction, is an account 
of the whole question. Other principal works are, Eichhorn, Einleitung in 
das N. T. 1801 ; Gratz, Neuer Versuch die Entstehung der drey ersten Evang. 
zu erkldren, 1862; Bertholdt, Histor.-kritische Einleitimg in sdmmtliche kanon. 
und apok. Schriften des A. und N. T, 1812-1819 ; Gieseler, Historisch-krit- 
ischer Versuch iiber die Entstehung, etc., der schriftlichen Evangelien, Leipzig, 
1818; De Wette, Lehrbuch ; Weisse, Evangelienfrage, 1856; and Westcott, 
History of N. T. Canon, London, 1859. 

§ 4. There is another supposition, to account for these facts, of which per- 
haps Gieseler has been the most acute expositor. It is probable that none 
of the Gospels were written until many years after the day of Pentecost, on 
which the Holy Spirit descended on the assembled disciples. From that 
day commenced at Jerusalem the work of preaching the Gospel and con- 
verting the world. So sedulous were the Apostles in this work that they 
divested themselves of the labor of ministering to the poor, in order that they 
might give themselves "continually to prayer and to the ministry of the 
word " (Acts vi.). Prayer and preaching were the business of their lives. Now 
their preaching must have been, from the nature of the case, in great part 
historical; it must have been based upon the account of the life and acts of 
Jesus of Nazareth. They had been the eye-witnesses of a wondrous life, of 
acts and sufferings that had an influence over all the world : many of their 
hearers had never heard of Jesus, many others had received false accounts 
of one whom it suited the Jewish rulers to stigmatize as an impostor. The 
ministry of our Lord went on principally in Galilee ; the first preaching was 
addressed to people in Judaea. There was no written record to which the 
hearers might be referred for historical details, and therefore the preachers 
must furnish not only inferences from the life of our Lord, but the facts of 
the life itself. The preaching, then, must have been of such a kind as to be 
to the hearers what the reading of lessons from the Gospel is to us. So far 
as the records of apostolic preaching in the Acts of the Apostles go, they con- 
firm this view. Peter at Cgesarea, and Paul at Antioch, preach alike tho 



Book ii. The Four Gosjwh. 367 

facts of the Redeemer's life and death. There is no improbability in sup. 
posing that in the course of twenty or thirty years' assiduous teaching with- 
out a written Gospel, the matter of the apostolic preaching should have taken 
a settled form. Not only might the Apostles think it well that their own 
accounts should agree, as in substance so in form ; but the teachers whom 
they sent forth, or left behind in the churches they visited, would have to be 
prepared for their mission ; and, so long as there was no written Gospel to 
put into their hands, it might be desirable that the oral instruction should 
be as far as possible one and the same to all. It is by no means certain 
that the interval between the mission of the Comforter and his work of di- 
recting the writing of the first Gospel was so long as is here supposed ; the 
date of the Hebrew St. Matthew may be earlier. But the argument remains 
the same : the preaching of the Apostles would probably begin to take one 
settled form, if at all, during the first years of their ministry. If it were al- 
lowed us to ask why God in his providence saw fit to defer the gift of a writ- 
ten Gospel to his people, the answer would be, that for the first few years the 
powerful working of the Holy Spirit in the living members of the Church 
supplied the place of those records which, as soon as the brightness of his 
presence began to be all Avith drawn, became indispensable in order to prevent 
the corruption of the Gospel history by false teachers. He was promised as 
one who should " teach them all things, and bring all things to their remem- 
brance, whatsoever " the Lord had " said unto them " (John xiv. 26). And 
more than once his aid is spoken of as needful, even for the proclamation 
of the facts that relate to Christ (Acts i. 8 ; 1 Pet. i. 12) ; and he is de- 
scribed as a witness with the Apostles, rather than through them, of the tilings 
which they had seen during the course of a ministry which they had shared 
(John xv. 2G, 27 ; Acts v. 32 : compare Acts xv. 28). The personal author- 
ity of the Apostles as eye-witnesses of what they preached is not set aside by 
this divine aid: again and again they describe themselves as "witnesses" 
to facts (Acts ii. 32, iii. 15, x. 39, etc.) ; and when a vacancy occurs in their 
number through the fall of Judas, it is almost assumed as a thing of course 
that his successor shall be chosen from those "which had companied with 
them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them " (Acts 
i. 21). The teachings of the Holy Spirit consisted, not in whispering to 
them facts which they had not witnessed, but rather in reviving the fading 
remembrance, and throwing out into their true importance events and say- 
ings that had been esteemed too lightly at the time they took place. But 
the Apostles could not have spoken of the Spirit as they did (Acts v. 32, xv. 
28) unless he were known to be working in and with them and directing 
them, and manifesting that this was the case by unmistakable signs. Here 
is the answer, both to the question why was it not the first care of the Apos- 
tles to prepare a written Gospel, and also to the scruples of those who fear 
that the supposition of an oral Gospel would give a precedent for those views 
of tradition which have been the bane of the Christian Church as they were 
of the Jewish. The guidance of the Holy Spirit supplied for a time such 
aid as made a written Gospel unnecessary ; but the Apostles saw the dan- 
gers and errors which a traditional Gospel would be exposed to in the course 
of time ; and, while they were still preaching the oral Gospel in the strength 
of the Holy Ghost, they were admonished by the same divine person to pre- 
pare those written records which were hereafter to be the daily spiritual food 
of all the Church of Christ. 3 Nor is there any thing unnatural in the sup 



368 The Four Gosjiels. • Appendix 

position, that the Apostles intentionally uttered their witness in the samo 
order, and even, for the most part, in the same form of words. They would 
thus approach most nearly to the condition in which the Church was to be 
when written books were to be the means of edification. They quote the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament frequently in their discourses ; and as their 
Jewish education had accustomed them to the use of the words as well as 
the matter of the Bible, they would do no violence to their prejudices in 
assimilating the new records to the old, and in reducing them to a '■'■form of 
sound words." They were all Jews of Palestine, of humble origin, all alike 
chosen, we may suppose, for the loving zeal with which they would observe 
the works of their Master and afterward propagate hig name ; so that the 
tendency to variance, arising from peculiarities of education, taste and char- 
acter, would be reduced to its lowest in such a body. The language of their 
first preaching was the Sj'ro-Chaldaic, which was a poor and scanty language ; 
and though Greek was how widely spread, and was the language even of sev- 
eral places in Palestine (Josephus, Ant. xvii. 11, §4; Bell. Jud. iii. 9, §1), 
though it prevailed in Antioch, whence the first missions to Greeks and Hel- 
lenists, or Jews who spoke Greek, proceeded (Acts xi. 20, xiii. 1-3), the 
Greek tongue, as used by Jews, partook of the poverty of the speech which 
it replaced; as, indeed, it is impossible to borrow a whole language without 
borrowing the habits of thought upon Avhich it has built itself. While mod- 
ern taste aims at a variety of expression, and abhors a repetition of the same 
phrases as monotonous, the simplicity of the men, and their language, and 
their education, and the state of literature, would all lead us to expect that 
the Apostles would have no such feeling. As to this, we have more than 
mere conjecture to rely on. Occasional repetitions occur in the Gospels 
Luke vii. 19, 20, xix. 31, 34), such as a writer in a more copious and cul- 
tivated language would perhaps have sought to avoid. In the Acts, the 
conversion of St. Paul is three times related (Acts ix., xxii., xxvi.), once 
by the writer and twice by St. Paul himself; and the two first harmonize 
exactly, except as to a few expressions and as to one more important cir- 
cumstance (ix. 7=;xxii. 9) — which, however, admits of an explanation — 
while the third deviates somewhat more in expression, and has one passage 
peculiar to itself. The vision of Cornelius is also three times related 
(Acts x. 3-6, 30-32, xi. 13, 14), where the words of the angel in the two first 
are almost precisely alike, and the rest very similar, while the other is an 
abridged account of the same facts. The vision of Peter is twice related 
(Acts x. 10-16, xi. 5-10), and, except in one or two expressions, the agree- 
ment is verbally exact. These places from the Acts, which, both as to then 
resemblance and their difference, may be compared to the narratives of the 
Evangelists, show the same tendency to a common form of narrative which, 
according to the present view, may have influenced the preaching of the 

3 The opening words of St. Luke's Gospel, | "many" can not refer to St. Matthew and 
"• Forasmuch as many have taken in hand St. Mark only; and if the passage implies 
to set forth in order a declaration of those an intention to supersede the writings 
things which are most surely believed alluded to, then these two Evangelists 
among us, even as they delivered them j can not he included under them. Partial 
unto us, which from the beginning were ; and incomplete reports of the preaching of 
eye-witnesses and ministei'3 of the word," ! the Apostles, written with a good aim, but 
appear to mean that many persons who i without authority, are intended : and, if we 
heard the preaching of the Apostles wrote i may argue from St. take's sphere of oh. 
down what they heard, in order to pre- j servation, they were probably composed bj 
curve it in a permanent form. The word i Greek converts. 



Book II. The Four Oospeis. 369 

Apostles. It is supposed, then, that the preaching of the Apostles, and the 
teaching whereby they prepared others to preach, as they did, would tend 
to assume a common form, more or less fixed ; and that the portions of the 
three Gospels which harmonize most exactly owe their agreement, not to 
the fact that they were copied from each other, although it is impossible to 
say that the later writer made no use of the earlier one, nor to the existence 
of any original document now lost to us, but to the fact that the apostolic 
preaching had already clothed itself in a settled or usual form of words, to 
which the writers inclined to conform without feeling bound to do so ; and 
the differences which occur, often in the closest proximity to the harmonies, 
arise from the feeling of independence with which each wrote what he had 
seen and heard, or, in the case of Mark and Luke, what apostolic witnesses 
had told him. The harmonies, as we have seen, begin with the baptism of 
John ; that is, with the consecration of the Lord to his Messianic office ; and 
with this event probably the ordinary preaching of the Apostles would begin, 
for its purport was that Jesus is the Messiah, and that as Messiah he suffer- 
ed, died and rose again. They are very frequent as we approach the peri- 
od of the Passion, because the sufferings of the Lord would be much in the 
mouth of every one who preached the Gospel, and all would become familiar 
with the words in which the Apostles described it. But as regards the Res- 
urrection, which differed from the Passion in that it was a fact which the 
enemies of Christianity felt bound to dispute (Matt, xxviii. 15), it is possible 
that the divergence arose from the intention of each Evangelist to contribute 
something toward the weight of evidence for this central truth. Accordingly, 
all the four, even St. Mark (xvi. 14), who oftener throws a new light upon 
old ground than opens out new, mention distinct acts and appearances of 
the Lord to establish that he was risen indeed. The verbal agreement is 
greater where the words of others are recorded, and greatest of all where 
they are those of Jesus, because here the apostolic preaching would be espe- 
cially exact ; and where the historical fact is the utterance of certain words, 
the duty of the historian is narrowed to a bare record of them. 

That this opinion would explain many of the facts connected With the 
text is certain. Whether, besides conforming to the words and arrange- 
ment of the apostolic preaching, the Evangelists did in any cases make use 
of each other's work or not, it would require a more careful investigation 
of details to discuss than space permits. Every reader would probably find 
on examination some places which could best be explained on this supposi- 
tion. Nor does this involve a sacrifice of the independence of the narrator. 
If each of the three drew the substance of his narrative from the one com- 
mon strain of preaching that everywhere prevailed, to have departed en- 
tirely in a written account from the common form of words to which 
Christian ears were beginning to be familiar, would not have been independ- 
ence but willfulness. To follow here and there the words and arrangement 
of another written Gospel already current, would not compromise the 
writer's independent position. If the principal part of the narrative was the 
voice of the whole Church, a few portions might be conformed to another 
writer without altering the character of the testimony. However close may 
be the agreement of the Evangelists, the independent position of each ap- 
pears from the contents of his book, a«d has been recognized by -writers of 
all ages. It will appear that St. Matthew describes the kingdom of 
Messiah, as founded in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Jesus of Naz« 

q 2 



370 The Four Gospels. Appendix 

areth ; that St. Mark, with so little of narrative peculiar to himself, brings 
out by many minute circumstances a more vivid delineation of our Lord's 
completely human life ; that St. Luke puts forward the work of Redemp* 
tion as a universal benefit, and shows Jesus not only as the Messiah of the 
chosen people but as the Saviour of the world ; that St. John, writing last 
of all, passed over most of what his predecessors had related, in order 
to set forth more fully all that he had heard from the Master who loved 
him, of His relation to the Father, and of the relation of the Holy Spirit 
to both. The independence of the writers is thus established ; and if they 
seem to have here and there used each other's account, which it is perhaps 
impossible to prove or disprove, such cases will not compromise that claim 
which alone gives value to a plurality of witnesses. 

§ 5. How does this last theory bear upon our belief in the inspiration of 
the Gospels? This momentous question admits of a satisfactory reply. 
Our blessed Lord, on five different occasions, promised to the Apostles the 
divine guidance, to teach and enlighten them in their dangers (Matt. x. 
19; Luke xii. 11, 12; Mark xiii. 11 ; and John xiv., xv., xvi.). He bade 
them take no thought about defending themselves before judges ; he prom- 
ised them the Spirit of Truth to guide them into all truth, to teach them 
all things, and bring all things to their remembrance. Tbat this promise 
was fully realized to them the history of the Acts sufficiently shows. But 
if the divine assistance was given them in their discourses and preaching, 
it would be rendered equally when they Avere about to put down in writing 
the same Gospel which they preached ; and, as this would be their greatest 
time of need, the aid would be granted them most surely. So that, as to St. 
Matthew r and St. John, we may say that their Gospels are inspired because 
the Avriters of them were inspired, according to their Master's promise; for 
it is impossible to suppose that he who put words into their mouths when 
they stood before a human tribunal, with no greater fear than that of death 
before them, would withhold his light and truth when the want of them 
would mislead the whole Church of Christ and turn the light that was in it 
into darkness. The case of the other two Evangelists is somewhat differ- 
ent. It has always been held that they' were under the guidance of Apos- 
tles in what they wrote — St. Mark under that of St. Peter, and St. Luke 
under that of St. Paul. We are not expressly told indeed that these Evan- 
gelists themselves were persons to whom Christ's promises of supernatural 
guidance had been extended, but it certainly was not confined to the twelve 
to whom it was originally made, as the case of St. Paul himself proves, who 
was admitted to all the privileges of an apostle, though, as it were, "born 
out of due time ;" and as St. Mark and St. Luke were the companions of 
apostles — shared their dangers, confronted hostile tribunals, had to teach 
and preach — there is reason to think that they equally enjoyed what they 
equally needed. In Acts xy. 28, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as the com- 
mon guide and light of all the brethren, not of apostles only; nay, to speak 
it reverently, as one of themselves. So that the Gospels of St. Mark and 
St. Luke appear to have been admitted into the canon of Scripture as writ- 
ten by inspired men in free and close communication with inspired apostles. 
But supposing that the portion of the three first Gospels which is common to 
all has been derived from the preaching of the apostles in genera], then it is 
drawn directly from a source which we know from our Lord himself to havo 
been inspired. It comes to us from those apostles into whose mouths Chrisf 



Book II. The Four Gospels. 371 

promised to put the words of his Holy Spirit. It is not from an anonymous 
writing, as Eichhorn thinks — it is not that the three witnesses are really one, 
as Storr and others have suggested in the theory of copying — but that the 
daily preaching of all apostles and teachers has found three independent 
transcribers in the three Evangelists. Now the inspiration of an historical 
writing will consist in its truth, and in its selection of events. Every 
thing narrated must be substantially and exactly true, and the comparison of 
the Gospels one with another offers us nothing that does not answer to this 
test. There are differences of arrangement of events; here some details 
of a narrative or a discourse are supplied which are wanting there ; and if 
the writer had professed to follow a strict chronological order, or had pre- 
tended that his record was not only true but complete, then one inversion 
of order, or one omission of a syllable, would convict him of inaccuracy. 
But if it is plain — if it is all but avowed — that minute chronological data 
are not part of the writer's purpose — if it is also plain that nothing but a 
selection of the facts is intended, or, indeed, possible (John xxi. 25) — then 
the proper test to apply is, whether each gives us a picture of the life and 
ministry of Jesus of Nazareth that is self-consistent and consistent with the 
others, such as would be suitable to the use of those who were to believe on 
his Name — for this is their evident intention. About the answer there 
should be no doubt. We have seen that each Gospel has its own features, 
and that the divine element has controlled the human, but not destroyed it. 
But the picture which they conspire to draw is one full of harmony. The 
Saviour they all describe is the same loving, tender guide of his disciples, 
sympathizing with them in the sorrows and temptations of earthly life, yet 
ever ready to enlighten that life by rays of truth out of the infinite world 
where the Father sits upon his throne. It has been said that St. Matthew 
portrays rather the human side, and St. John the divine ; but this holds 
good only in a limited sense. It is in St. John that we read that "Jesus 
wept;" and there is nothing, even in the last discourse of Jesus, as reported 
by St. John, that opens a deeper view of his divine nature than the words 
in St. Matthew (xi. 25-30) beginning, " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of 
heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
prudent and hast revealed them unto babes." All reveal the same divine 
and human Teacher ; four copies of the same portrait, perhaps with a dif- 
ference of expression yet still the same, are drawn here, and it is a por- 
trait the like of which no one had ever delineated before, or, indeed, could 
have done, except from having looked on it with observant eyes, and from 
having had the mind opened by the Holy Spirit to comprehend features of 
such unspeakable radiance. Not only does this highest " harmony of the 
Gospels" manifest itself to every pious reader of the Bible, but the lower 
harmony — the agreement of fact and word in all that relates to the ministry 
of the Lord, in all that would contribute to a true view of his spotless charac- 
ter — exists also, and can not be denied. For example, all tell us alike that 
Jesus was transfigured on the mount; that the shekinah of divine glory 
shone upon his face ; that Moses the lawgiver and Elijah the prophet talk- 
ed with him; and that the voice from heaven bare witness to him. Is it 
any imputation upon the truth of the histories that St. Matthew alone tells 
us that the witnesses fell prostrate to the earth, and that Jesus raised them ? 
or, that St. Luke alone tells us that for a part of the time they were heavy 
with sleep? Again, one Evangelist, in describing our Lord's temptation. 



372 The Four Gospels. Appendix 

follows the order of the occurrences, another arranges them according ta 
the degrees of temptation, and the third, passing over all particulars, merely 
mentions that our Lord was tempted. Is there any thing here to shake our 
faith in the writers as credible historians ? Do we treat other histories in 
this exacting spirit? Is not the very independence of treatment the 
pledge to us that we have really three witnesses to the fact that Jesus was 
tempted like as we are ? for if the Evangelists were copyists, nothing would 
have been more easy than to remove such an obvious difference as this. 
The histories are true according to any test that should be applied to a his- 
tory ; and the events that they select — though we could not presume to say 
that they were more important than what are omitted, except from the fact 
of the omission — are at least such as to have given the whole Christian 
Church a clear conception of the Redeemer's life, so that none has ever 
complained of insufficient means of knowing him. 

There is a perverted form of the theory we are considering, which pre- 
tends that the facts of the Redeemer's life remained in the state of an oral 
tradition till the latter part of the second century, and that the Four Gospels 
were not written till that time. The difference is not of degree, but of 
kind, between the opinion that the Gospels were written during the life- 
time of the Apostles, who were eye-witnesses, and the notion that for nearly 
a century after the oldest of them had passed to his rest the events were 
only preserved in the changeable and insecure form of an oral account. 
But for the latter opinion there is not one spark of historical evidence. 
Heretics of the second century, who would gladly have rejected and exposed 
a new Gospel that made against them, never hint that the Gospels are 
spurious ; and orthodox writers ascribe without contradiction the author- 
ship of the books to those whose name they bear. The theory was invented 
to accord with the assumption that miracles are impossible, but upon no 
evidence whatever ; and the argument, when exposed, runs in this vicious 
circle: — "There are no miracles, therefore the accounts of them must 
have grown up in the course of a century from popular exaggeration ; and 
as the accounts are not contemporaneous, it is not proved that there are 
miracles !" That the Jewish mind in its lowest decay should have invent- 
ed the character of Jesus of Nazareth, and the sublime system of morality 
contained in his teaching — that four writers should have fixed the popular 
impression in four plain, simple, unadorned narratives, without any out- 
bursts of national prejudice, or any attempt to give a political tone to the 
events they wrote of— would be in itself a miracle harder to believe than 
that Lazarus came out at the Lord's call from his four-days' tomb. 



Book II. 



The Four Gospels, 



373 



§ 6. TABLE OF THE HAEMONY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. 



N.B. — In the following Table, where all the references under a 


given section 


are printed in 


thick type, as under u Two Genealogies," it is to be understood that some special difficulty 


besets the harmony. Where one or more references under a given section are in thin, and 


one or more in thick type, it is to be understood that the former 


are given as in their proper 


place, and that it is more or less doubtful whether the latter 


are to be considered as par- 


allel narratives or not. 






r 


St. Matthew 


St. Mabk. 


ST. LT7KE. 


St. John. 


"The Word" 








i. 1-14 


Preface, to Theophilus .... 






i.1-4* 




Annunciation of the Baptist's Birth 






i. 5-25 




Annunciation of the birth of Jesus 






i. 26-38 




Mary visits Elizabeth .... 






i. 39-56 




Birth of John the Baptist . . 






i. 57-SO 




Birth of Jesus Christ .... 


i. 18-25 




ii. 1-7 
iii, 23-38 

ii. 8-20 




Two Genealogies 


i. 1-17 


The watching Shepherds . . 








The Circumcision 






ii. 21 




Presentation in the Temple 






ii. 22-38 




The wise men from the East . 


ii. 1-12 








Flight to Egypt 


ii. 13-23 




ii 39 " 




Disputing with the Doctors . . 






ii. 40-52 




Ministry of John the Baptist . 


iii. 1-12 


i.1-8" 


iii. 1-18 


i. 15-31 


Baptism of Jesus Christ . . . 


iii 13-17 


i.9-11 


iii. 21, 22 


i. 32-34 


The Temptation 


iv.1-11 


i. 12, 13 


iv. 1-13 




Andrew and another see Jesus 








i. 35-40 


Simon, now Cephas (Peter) . . 








i. 41-42 


Philip and Nathanael .... 








i. 43-51 


The water made wine .... 








ii. 1-11 


Passover (1st) and cleans- ) 
ing the Temple J 








ii. 12-22 










Nicodemus 








ii. 23-iii. 21 


Cirist and John Baptizing . . . 








iii. 22-36 


The woman of Samaria 








iv. 1-42 


John the Baptist in prison . . . 


iv 12;'xiv. 3 


i. 14;vi.l7 


iii. 19,20 


iii. 24 


Return to Galilee 


iv. 12 


i. 14, 15 


iv. 14, 15 


iv. 43-45 


The synagogue at Nazareth . 






iv. 16-30 




The nobleman's son 








iv. 46-54 


Capernaum. Four Apostles called 


iv. 13-22 


i. 16-20 


v i-ii 




Demoniac healed there .... 




i. 21-28 


iv. 31-37 




Simon's wife's mother healed . 


viii. 14-17 


i. 29-34 


iv. 38-41 




First Circuit round Galilee 


iv. 23-25 


i. 35-39 


iv. 42-44 




Healing a leper 


viii. 1-4 


i. 40-45 


v. 12-16 




Christ stills the storm .... 


viii. 18-27 


iv. 35-41 


viii. 22-25 




Demoniacs in land of Gadarenes . 


viii. 2S-34 


v.1-20 


viii. 26-39 




' Jairns's daughter. Woman healed 


ix. 18-26 


v. 21-43 


viii. 40-56 




Blind men, and demoniac . 


ix. 27-34 








Healing the paralytic .... 




ii. 1-12 


v. 17-26 


.. 


Matthew the Publican .... 


ix. 9-13 


ii. 13-17 


v. 27-32 




" Thy disciples fast not " . . . 


ix. 14-17 


ii. 18-22 


v. 33-39 




Journey to Jerusalem ") 
to 2d Passovee j 








v. 1. 








;Bool of Bethesda. Power of Christ 








v. 2-47 


Plucking ears of corn on Sabbath 


xii. 1-8 


ii. 23-2S 


vi. 1 -5 ' 




The withered hand. Miracles 


xii. 9-21 


iii. 1-12 


vi. 6-11 




The Twelve Apostles .... 


x.2-4 


iii. 13-19 


vi. 12-16 




The Sermon on the Mount . 


v. 1-vii. 29 




vi. 17-49 




The centurion's servant . . . 






vii. 1-10 


iv. 46-54 


The widow's son at Nain . 






vii. 11-17 




Messengers from John .... 


xi. 2-19 




vii. 1S-35 




Woe to the cities of Galilee . . 


xi. 20-24 








Call to the meek and suffering 


xi. 25-30 








Anointing the feet of Jesus . . 






vii. 36-50 





374 



Harmony of the Four Gospels. 



Appendix 





St. Matthew 


St. Mark. 


St. Luke. 


St. John. 


Second Circuit round Galilee . 






viii. 1-3 




Parable of the Sower .... 


xiii. 1-28 


iv. 1-20 


viii. 4-15 




u Candle under a Bushel 




iv. 21-25 


viii. 16-18 




" the Growth of Seed 




iv. 26-29 






" the Wheat and Tares . 


xiii. 24-30 








" Grain of Mustard Seed 


xiii. 31, 32 


iv. 30-32 


xiii. 18-19 




" Leaven 


xiii. 33 




xiii. 20-21 




On teaching by parables . . . 


xiii. 34, 35 


iv. 33-34 






Wheat and tares explained 


xiii. 36-43 








The treasure, the pearl, the net . 


xiii. 44-52 








His mother and his brethren . 


xii, 46-50 


iii. 31-35 


viii. 19-21 




Reception at Nazareth .... 


xiii. 53-58 


vi. 1-6 






Third Circuit round Galilee . . 


ix. 35-38; xi. 1 


vi. 6 






Sending forth the Twelve . 


X. 


vi. 7-13 


ix. 1-6 " 




Herod's opinion of Jesus . . 


xiv. 1, 2 


vi. 14-16 


ix. 7-9 




Death of John the Baptist . 


xiv. 3-12 


vi. 17-29 






Approach of Passovee (3d) . . 








vi. 4 


Feeding of the five thousand . 


xiv. 13-21 


vi. 30-44 


ix. 10-17 


vi. 1-15 


Walking on the sea 


xiv. 22-33 


vi 45-52 




vi. 16-21 


Miracles in Gennesaret .... 


xiv. 34-36 


vi. 53-56 






The bread of life 








vi. 22-65 


The unwashen hands . . . . 


xv. 1-20 


vii. 1-23 






The Syro-Phoenician woman . 


xv. 21-28 


vii. 24-30 






Miracles of healing 


xv. 29-31 


vii. 31-37 






Feeding of the four thousand . 


xv. 32-39 


viii. 1-9 






The sign from heaven . . . . 


xvi. 1-4 


viii. 10-13 






The leaven of the Pharisees 


xvi. 5-12 


viii. 14 21 






Blind man healed . . ... 




viii. 22-26 






Peter's profession of faith . 


xvi. 13ll9 


viii. 27-29 


ix. 18-20 


vi. 66-71 


The Passion foretold . . . . 


xvi. 20-28 


viii. 30-ix. 1 


ix. 21-27 




The Transfiguration 


xvii. 1-9 


ix. 2-10 


ix. 28-36 




Elijah 


xvii. 10-13 


ix. 11-13 






The lunatic healed 


xvii. 14-21 


ix. 14-29 


ix. 37-42 




The Passion again foretold . . . 


xvii. 22,23 


ix. 30-32 


ix. 43-45 




Fish caught for the tribute . . 


xvii. 24-27 








The little child 


xviii. 1-5 


ix. 33-37 


ix. 4G-4S 




One casting out devils . 




ix. 38-41 


ix. 49,50 




Offenses 


xviii. 6-9 


ix. 42-48 


xvii. 2 




The lost sheep 


xviii. 10-14 




xv. 4-7 


.. 


Forgiveness of injuries . 


xviii. 15-17 








Binding and loosing 


xviii. 18-20 






.. 


Forgiveness. Parable . 


xviii. 21-35 






.. 


u Salted with fire" 




ix. 43-50 






Journey to Jerusalem . 






ix. 51* ' 


vii. i-ib 


Fire from heaven 






ix. 52-56 




Answers to disciples 


viii. 19122 




ix. 57-G2 




The Seventy disciples . . . . 






x. 1-16 




Discussions at Feast of Tabernacles 








vii. 11-53 


Woman taken in adultery . . . 








viii. 1-11 


Dispute with the Pharisees . . 








viii. 12-59 


The man born blind 








ix. 1-41 


The good Shepherd 








x. 1-21 


The return of the Seventy . . 






x. 17-24 




The Good Samaritan . . . . 






x. 25-37 




Mary and Martha 






x. SS-42 




The Lord's Prayer 


vi, 9-i.3 




xi. 1-4 




Prayer effectual 


vii. 7-11 




xi.5-13 




u Through Beelzebub " . . . . 


xii. 22-37 


iii. 20-30 


xi. 14-23 




The unclean spirit returning . 


xii, 43-45 




xi. 24-28 




The sign of Jonah 


xii. 38-42 




xi. 29-32 




! The light of the body . . . . 


fv. 15. vi.) 
1,22-23 J 




xi. 33-36 


.. 


The Pharisees 


xxiii. 




xi. 37-54 




What to fear 


x. 26-33 




xii. 1-12 
xii. 13-15 




u Master, speak to my brother" . 




Covetousness 


vi. 25-33 




xii. 16-31 




Watchfulness 






xii. 32-59 




Galileans that perished . 






xiii. 1-9 





Book II. 



Harmony of the Four Gospels. 



375 





St. Matthew 


St. Mark. 


St. Luxe. 


St. John. 


Woman healed on Sabbath . . 






xiii. 10-17 




The grain of mustard seed . . 


xiii, 31, 32 


iv, 30-32 


xiii. IS, 19 




The leaven 


xiii. 33 




xiii. 20, 21 




Toward Jerusalem 






xiii. 22 




u Are there few that be saved?" . 






xiii. 23-30 




Warning against Herod . . . 






xiii. 31-33 




"0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem" . . 


xxiii. 37-39 




xiii. 34, 35 




Dropsy healed on Sabbath day . 






xiv. 1-6 




Choosing the chief rooms . . 






xiv. 7-14 




Parable of the Great Supper . . 


xxii. 1-14 




xiv. 15-24 




Following Christ with the Cross . 


x.37,38 


.. 


xiv. 25-35 




Parables of Lost Sheep, ") 










Piece of Money, Prodigal [ 






xv., xvi. 




Son, Unjust Steward, Rich f 










Man and Lazarus J 










Offenses 


xviii. 6-15 




xvii. 1-4 
xvii. 5-10 


'•' 1 


Faith and merit 


xvii, 20 


The ten lepers 






xvii. 11-19 




How the kingdom comath . 






xvii. 20-37 




Parable of the Unjust Judge . . 






xviii. 1-8 




" the Pharisee and Publican . 






xviii. 9-14 




Divorce ... 


xix. 1-12 


x. 1-12 

x. 13-16 


xviii. 15-17 




Infants brought to Jesus . . 


xix. 13-15 


The rich man inquiring . . 


xix. 16-26 


x. 17-27 


xviii. 18-27 




Promises to the disciples . . . 


xix. 27-30 


x. 28-31 


xviii. 28-30 




Laborers in the vineyard . . . 


xx. 1-16 








Doath of Christ foretold . . . 


xx. 17-19 


x. 32-34 


xviii. 31-34 




Request of James and John 


xx. 20-28 


x. 35-45 






Blind men at Jericho .... 


xx. 29-34 


x. 46-52 


xviii. 35-43 




|Zacchseus 






xix. 1-10 




^Parable of the Ten Talents . . 


xxv. 14-30 




xix. 11-2S 




(Feast of Dedication 








x. 22-39 


Beyond Jordan 








x. 40-42 


Raising of Lazarus 








Xi. 1-44 


Meeting of the Sanhedrim . 








xi. 45-53 


Christ in Ephraim 








xi. 54-57 


Arrival at Bethany six days) 
before the Passover / 








xii. 1, 9 










The anointing by Mary , . . . 


xxvi. 6-13 


xiv. 3-9 


vii. 36-50 


xiL 2-8 


Plot against Him and Lazarus 








xii. 10, 11 


Christ enters Jerusalem . . . 


xxi. 1-11 


xi. 1-10 


xix. 29-44 


xii. 12-19 


Cleansing of the Temple (2d) 


xxi. 12-16 


xi. 15-18 


xix. 45-48 


ii. 13-22 


The barren fig-tree ..... 


xxi. 17-22 


(xi. 11-14,) 
\ 19-23 J 
xi. 24-26 






Pray, and forgive 








u By what authority," etc . 


xxi. 23-27 


xi. 27-33 


xx. 1-8 




Parable of the Two Sons 


xxi. 2S-32 








" the Wicked Husbandmen 


xxi. "3-4G 


xii. 1-12 


xx. 9-19 




" the Wedding Garment . 


xxii. 1-14 




xiv. 16-24 




The tribute-money 


xxii. 15-22 


xii. 13-17 


xx. 20-26 




The state of the risen .... 


xxii. 23-33 


xii. 18-27 


xx. 27-40 




The great Commandment . 


xxii. 34-40 


xii. 28-34 






David's Son and David's Lord 


xxii. 41-46 


xii. 35-37 


xx. 4 1-44 




Against the Pharisees . . . . 




xii. 38-40 


xx. 45-47 




The widow's mite 




xii. 41-44 


xxi. 1-4 




Christ's second coming . . . . 


xxiv. 1-51 


xiii. 1-37 


xxi. 5-3S 




Parable of the Ten Virgins . . 


xxv. 1-13 








" the Talents . . . . 


xxv. 14-30 




xix. 11-28 




The Last Judgment 


xxv. 31-40 








Greeks visit Jesus. Voice) 
from heaven ) 








xii. 20-36 j 










Reflections of John 








xii. 36-50 


Last Passover (4th).) 
Jews conspire / 


xxvi. 1-5 


xiv. 1, 2 


xxii. 1, 2 












Judas Iscariot 


xxvi. 14-16 


xiv. 10, 11 


xxii. 3-6 




Paschal Supper 


xxvi. 17-29 


xiv. 12-25 


xxii. 7-23 


xiii. 1-35 


Contention of the Apostles . . 






xxii. 24-30 




Peter's fall foretold 


xxvi. 30-35 


xiv. 26-31 


xxii. 31-39 


xiii. 36-38 



376 



Harmony of the Four Gospels 



Appendix. 



Last Discourse. The depart- 

1 ure ; the Comforter 

jThe Vine and the Branches. 

Abiding in love 
Work of the Comforter in dig 
The prayer of Christ . . 

Gethsemane 

The betrayal 

Before Annas (Caiaphas) > 

Peter's denial j * 
Before the Sanhedrim . . 
Before Pilate 



The Traitor's death 
Before Herod . . 



ciples 



Accusation and Condemnation 

Treatment by the soldiers . 
The Crucifixion . . 

The mother of Jesus . . 
Mockings and railings . . 
The malefactor .... 

The death 

Darkness and other portents 
The by-standers .... 
The side pierced .... 

The burial 

The guard of the sepulchre 

The Resurrection 
Disciples going to Emmaus 
Appearances in Jerusalem . 
At the Sea of Tiberias . . 
On the Mount in Galilee 
Unrecorded Works . 



Ascension 



St. Matthew 



xxvi. 36-46 

xxvi. 4T-56 
/ xxvi. 57, ) 
\ 58, 69-T5 / 

xxvi. 59-68 
/ xxvii. 1, \ 
1 2, 11-14 | 

xxvii. 3-10 



xxvii. 15-26 

xxvii. 27-31 
xxvii. 32-38 

xxvii. 39-44 

xxvii. 59 
xxvii. 45-53 
xxvii. 54-56 

xxvii. 57-61 
xxvii. 62-66 | 
xxviii.ll-15J 
xxviii. 1-10 



xxviii. 16-20 



St. Mark. 



xiv. 32-42 

xiv. 43-52 
/ xiv. 53, 1 
\54, 66-72 j 

xiv. 55-65 

xv. 1-5 



xv. 6-15 

xv. 16-20 
xv. 21-28 

xv. 29-32 

xv. 37 ' 
xv. 33-38 
xv. 39-41 

xv. 42-47 



xvi. 1-11 
xvi. 12, 13 
xvi. 14-18 



xvi. 19-20 



St. Luke. 



xxii. 40-46 
xxii. 47-53 
xxii. 54-62 

xxii. 63-71 
xxiii. 1-3 

xxiii. 4-11 
xxiii. 13-25 j 

xxiii. 36,37 

xxiii. 26-34 

xxiii. 35-39 
xxiii. 40-43 
xxiii. 46 
xxiii. 44, 45 
xxiii. 47-49 

xxiii. 50-56 



xxiv. 1-12 
xxiv. 13-35 
xxiv. 36-49 



xxiv. 50-53 



St. John. 



xiv. 1-31 
xv. 1-27 

xvi. 1-33 
xvii. 1-26 
xviii. 1 
xviii. 2-11 
xviii. 12-27 



xviii. 29-40) 
xix. 1-16 j" 
xix. 2, 3 
xix. 17-24 
xix. 25-27 



xix. 28-30 



xix. 31-37 
xix. 38-42 



1-18 



xx. 19-29 
xxL 1-23 



xx. 30- 
xxi. 24 



31;) 

,25} 




Jerusalem. 



BOOK III. 



HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES ; OR, THE FOUNDING OF THH 
CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE TO THE DISPERSION OF THE CHRIS- 
TIANS FROM JERUSALEM. A.D. 30-37. 



§ 1. The Acts of the Apostles not a complete apostolic history — Its real pur- 
pose — Break between it and the earliest Ecclesiastical History. § 2. 
The Primitive Church in its two sections, Galilean and Judaean — The 
120 brethren at Jerusalem. § 3. Choice of Matthias to be an Apostle 
in place of Judas. § 4. The Day of Pentecost, or Whitsunday, 6th of 
Sivan, May 27th, a.d. 30 — Descent of the Holy Ghost — Gift of the 
Spirit — The Disciples speak with Tongues — Effects on the People — St. 
Peter's Sermon — The 3000 converts — Practical reformation — State of 
the Primitive Church. § 5. Healing of the Lame Man at the Temple 
— St. Peter's second discourse — Peter and John before the Sanhedrim 
—Their dismissal — Thanksgivings of the Church and new effusion of 



378 History of the Apostles. Chap. XIII, 

the Holy Ghost — Community of goods. § 6. The Sin and Judgment 
of Ananias and Sapphira — Its effect upon the people. § 7. Imprison- 
ment and deliverance of the Apostles — Their boldness before the San- 
hedrim — The counsel of Gamaliel. § 8. Beginning of positive institu- 
tions in the Church — Dissension between the Hellenists and the He- 
brews — Appointment of the Seven Deacons — Their zeal for the Gospel. 
§ 9. Success of Stephen in controversy with the Hellenistic Jews — His 
defense before the Sanhedrim — His martyrdom, and Saul's share in it. 
§ 10. General persecution, and dispersion of the disciples from Jerusa- 
lem — Diffusion of the Gospel — Three steps : Samaria, Ethiopian eunuch, 
Cornelius — Philip at Samaria — Simon Magus and Peter. §11. The 
Ethiopian eunuch converted and baptized by Philip — Philip fixes his 
abode at Cassarea. § 12. Position of the Christian Church at the death 
of Tiberius. 

§ 1. St. Luke's " Second Treatise " or Discourse, 1 addressed 
to Theophilus, bears a title apt to mislead the reader ; a title 
certainly not given to it by its author. It contains no full ac- 
count of the " Acts of the Apostles." Most of them are nev- 
er mentioned even by name, after the list given in the first 
chapter ; and the history of St. Paul is not brought down to 
his death. Its true subject is the fulfillment of the promise 
of the Father by the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the results 
of that outpouring, in the diffusion of the Gospel among Jews 
and Gentiles. It deals only with the beginning of this great 
theme ; and, having shown us the full establishment of Christ's 
Church, first in the Holy Land, then in those Eastern and 
Grecian provinces of the Roman empire which the Jews were 
wont to regard as representing the whole Gentile world, and 
finally at Rome, it leaves all the future progress of the Gospel 
to be recorded by the Church itself. 

And the point where the sacred history thus breaks off is 
marked by a most striking change in the character of the rec- 
ords. There is a great gulf between the last verses of the 
" Acts " and the last allusions in the Epistles of St. Paul, and 
the earliest authentic chapters of what is called " Ecclesiastic- 
al History." The chasm is only bridged over by traditions 
of uncertain value, in which even the martyrdom of St. Peter 
and St. Paul is disfigured by childish legends, and worldly 
principles are already seen at work in the kingdom of 
Christ. 

§ 2. In describing the history before us as that of the 
foundation of the Christian Church, we use the word in its 
wider sense. The foundation stone was laid, in Christ's own 
person, when he was shown to Israel by his baptism ; and the 

1 This title is implied in the opening words, in which he refers to his Gos-. 
pel as tov TTp&rov Xoyov, Acts i. 1. 



A.D. 30-37. 



Office of Peter. 



379 



disciples whom he gathered formed a perfect Church when he 
left them, at his ascension, with the commission to go forth 
and preach the Gospel to every creature. Nay, more : this 
Church already exhibited that condition which subsequently 
led to the greatest difficulties and divisions. In theory, and 
according to the declarations of Christ himself, it formed one 
body> like the congregation of the Jewish people, from which 
it derived both its name and the model of its constitution. 2 
But that body was already practically divided into parts, — ■ 
the Christians of Judaea and of Galilee, besides those of Sa- 
maria, PeraBa, and the more distant countries round. The as- 
sumption that all these, who were not absolutely prevented, 
were gathered in waiting at Jerusalem, by the command of 
Jesus, is excluded by a curious proof. We have seen that 
the disciples who met Jesus on the mountain in Galilee were 
five hundred in number ; but when Peter first stood up to ad- 
dress the disciples assembled at Jerusalem, "the number of 
the names together were about one hundred and twenty" 
only. 3 How these were made up, we may infer from what 
we read just before — that the eleven Apostles, having return- 
ed from the Mount of Olives, assembled in an upper room, 
with the mother and brethren of Jesus and the women who 
had ministered to him, and there abode in prayer and suppli- 
cation. Their evenings were thus spent ; for in the day-time, 
" they were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing 
God," doubtless declaring Christ's resurrection and ascension 
to the people. 4 These, then, with the other disciples resident 
in Jerusalem, made up the one hundred and twenty brethren ; 
and at first sight they seem to act as the whole Church, in the 
election of the new Apostle. But a closer consideration will 
perhaps show that this election was conducted by the Apos- 
tles, in the presence and with the sanction of the brethren at 
Jerusalem, rather than as an act of the whole Church. On 
the day of Pentecost, however, when the Holy Spirit was 
poured out on the disciples, the great body of the believers were 
no doubt present, having come up to keep the feast at Jerusa- 
lem ; 6 and it was then that they were first seen in public as the 
Church of Christ. 



2 It is not the pin-pose of this work 
to discuss ecclesiastical questions ; and 
therefore we must abstain from prov- 
ing the points assumed in the text : — 
that the Christian Church is modeled 
on the Jewish Congregation, and that 
the word iiacXqaia is simply the trans- 



lation of the Hebrew word signifying 
" congregation " (Ps. xxii. 22). 

3 Acts i. 15. 

4 Acts i. 12-14 ; Luke xxiv. 53. 

5 This seems to be indicated by the 
phrase, " They were all with one ac- 
cord in one place." 



380 ' History of the Apostles. Chap. XIII. 

§ 3. Among the Apostles and disciples, Peter occupies the 
place assigned to him by Christ when he gave him the keys 
of the kingdom of heaven. It was his office to open the 
doors of the Church, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, 
while his brethren labored equally with him to bring the con- 
verts in. While waiting for the Spirit to qualify them for 
the work, Peter invited them to fill up the vacancy in the 
number of the Apostles caused by the fall of Judas. He lays 
clown the first essential qualification for the apostolic office — 
the having been one of the companions of Christ from his 
baptism by John till his ascension — and declares the object 
of the election, " to be a witness with us of his resurrection." 
Two such men were chosen, either by the Apostles or by the 
disciples, whose choice in either case supplied a testimony to 
their character; but the ultimate decision was referred to 
God himself by the sacred trial of the lot, accompanied by 
prayer. The two were Joseph, also called Barsabas, 6 and 
surnamed the Just, and Matthias ; and the lot fell upon the 
latter. 7 

§ 4. Ten days after the ascension, the time arrived which 
God had appointed for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on 
the disciples. " The day of Pentecost was fully come ;" the 
first and great day of the feast of the full ingathering of the 
harvest. 8 It was called by the Jews the " Feast of Weeks," 
and in Greek Pentecost (the fiftieth day) because it fell on 
the day after the completion of seven weeks from the second, 
or great day, of the feast of unleavened bread. It brought 
to Jerusalem a greater concourse of Jews and proselytes from 
all parts of the world than any other of the three great festi- 
vals. Hence the season was as well chosen for the first proc* 



c The only other record we have of 
Barsabas is the story of Papias, that 
he drank a deadly poison unharmed, 
possibly an invention to complete the 
fulfillment of Mark xvi. 18. Papias 
calls him Judas Barsabas, a name 
which appears in Acts xv. 22 as that 
of one of the chief disciples. 

7 Acts i. 1 5-26. For what is known 
of Matthias, see the supplementary 
account of the Apostles. According 
to Grotius, the lot was taken by means 
of two urns. (In Prov. xvi. 33, the 



and in the other two rolls, one with 
the word Apostle, and the other 
blank ; and one roll was drawn from 
each urn simultaneously. 

8 Acts ii. 1. On the Feast of Pen- 
tecost see 0. T. Hist., Appendix to 
Book III., Section VI. § 11. Seven 
weeks were reckoned from the 16th 
of Nisan, and the following day, the 
6th of Sivan, was the day of Pente- 
cost. Since in a.d. 30 the 16th of 
Nisan fell, as we have seen, on Sat- 
urday the 7th of April, the day of 



word translated lap probably signifies j Pentecost fell on Sunday, May 27th. 
urn). In one they placed two rolls [ Hence the festival has been perpet* 
of paper, with the names of Joseph J uated in the Christian Church ai 
and Matthias written within them ; i Whitsunday. 



A.D. 30-37. 



Pentecostal Gifts of the Spirit. 



381 



lamation of our Lord's resurrection and ascension, as its occa< 
sion and its rites were symbolical of the first-fruit of the 
spiritual harvest, which were offered to God as the result of 
Peter's preaching. 

On this day, the disciples, including those who had come 
up to the feast, were all gathered by common consent ;° when 
there was heard the sound of a rushing wind, as it were de- 
scending from heaven, and filling the house where they were 
sitting, while lambent flames, shaped like cloven tongues, 
were seen upon all their heads. These signs at once furnished 
to the senses a double evidence of some divine power, and ex- 
actly corresponded to the figurative language chosen by Jesus 
to describe the operations of the Holy Spirit : — a baptism of 
fire — a wind blowing where God wills, whose sound we hear, 
but can not trace its path. That Spirit was given to qualify 
the disciples for their work as witnesses of Christ, as he had 
said, " enduing them with power from on high." It was to 
work within, " guiding them into all truth ;" 10 not only ena- 
bling them to remember all that Jesus had said to them, 11 but 
opening their minds to understand the truths concealed as yet 
under his words. 12 With spiritual discernment it brought 
spiritual life, all those moral virtues and graces which St. Paul 
calls " the fruit of the Spirit." 13 

These inward gifts of the Spirit remained to be proved by 
the future course of the disciples ; but other external gifts 
were at once made manifest, as a public proof of their endow- 
ment for their work. These were the " extraordinary gifts 
of the Spirit ;" gifts, that is, miraculous in their nature ; and 
like other miraculous works, they were designed partly in- 
deed for their direct use, but still more as the sign of a di- 
vine mission. 14 Perhaps the most striking of these gifts, 
and certainly the one best suited to the present occasion, was 
the power of " speaking with tongues," that is, in foreign lan- 
guages. 15 This gift, conferred on illiterate Galileans, at once 
enabled them to address the various strangers assembled at 
the feast, each in his own language, and gave to those so ad- 
dressed a convincing proof that God was with the speakers, 



9 The word ofioOv/jiadov seems to 
imply some impulse bringing them 
together in a state of excited expec- 
tation. 

10 John xvi. 13. n John xiv. 26. 
12 See especially John vii. 39. 

ls Gal. v. 22-25 ; Eph. v. 9. 

M 1 Cor. xiv. 22. See the whole 



discussion upon such gifts by St. Paul, 
in the Epistles to the Romans and the 
Corinthians. 

15 The introduction of the word un- 
known, which does not occur in the 
N. T., has given some color to the 
absurd idea that these were tongues 
unknown to any human language. 



382 



History of the Apostles. 



Chap. XIII. 



and to themselves the assurance that they were to preach the 
Gospel to all nations and kindreds and tongues under heaven. 
How far the gift was permanent in those who received it does 
not appear. The statements of St. Paul prove that it was 
afterward by no means common to the whole body of believ- 
ers, as it appears to have been on this day. That it was not 
intended to supersede the use of acquired learning, is proved 
by the choice of Paul himself as the Apostle of the Greeks ; 
and the books of the New Testament bear marks of dialect, 
influenced, to say the least, by the natural powers of the writ- 
ers. 

This gift, bestowed at the moment of the descent of the 
cloven tongues of fire, about the time of the morning sacrifice, 
was immediately used by the Apostles and disciples in utter- 
ing the praises of God. The news soon spread through the 
city, and the multitude flocked together to the scene, confound- 
ed at hearing these Galileans speak in several languages. 16 
The passage furnishes an interesting enumeration of the prov- 
inces, and regions even beyond the Roman empire, in which 
Jews were found. The enumeration is not made at random, 
but follows a regular order from East to West, beginning 
with the Parihians, Medes and Elamites, beyond the Roman 
Empire, and the Mesopotamians on the frontier ; then, cross- 
ing the desert, to Judoea (with which we may suppose Syria 
to be included) ; next proceeding northward, and circling 
round the peninsula of Asia Minor, Ave have Cappadocia, 
Pontus, proconsular Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia/ whence 
the transition is natural across the Mediterranean, to Egypt 
and the parts of Libya about Gyrene / where, reaching the 
Western Provinces, the Mediterranean is recrossed to Rome 
itself, and the strength of the Jewish element in the popula- 
tion of Italy is attested by the phrase, " strangers of Home, 
Jews and Proselytes /" and the list is concluded, somewhat 
less regularly, by the Cretes and Arabians. 

An attempt was made to discredit the general feeling that 
all this had some strange meaning, by the taunting sugges- 
tion that the men were drunk with new wine. Upon this 
Peter spoke out ; and, having repelled the charge by an ap- 
peal to the early hour (9 o'clock), a time at which none be- 
gin drinking in the East, he declared that what they saw was 



. iC Acts ii. 5-11. The words "Arc 
not all these which speak, Galileans ?" 
might favor the view that the Apos- 
tles only were the speakers ; but the 



disciples were already so far identi- 
fied with Galilee in common repute 
as to forbid our taking the phrase too 
literallv. 



A.D. 30-37. The First Converts. 383 

the fulfillment of Joel's great prophecy concerning the descent 
of the Spirit upon all flesh in the last days ; when wonders 
should be shown in heaven and earth, that men might call 
upon the name of Jehovah and be saved. Then plainly charg- 
ing the people with their wickedness in crucifying Jesus, he de- 
clares his resurrection by the power of God to be the fulfill- 
ment of David's prophecy of Christ; and, inferring from that 
prophecy the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God, he 
points to this which they now saw and heard as his first gift 
to men, and as a proof " that God hath made that same Jesus, 
whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." 

The appeal to their consciences w r as the more striking as, 
besides the rulers resident at Jerusalem, many other Jews, 
who had joined in the scenes enacted at the Passover, were 
now re-assembled at Jerusalem after six weeks' interval for re- 
flection. At once the sting of conviction pierced their hearts ; 
and their, cry to Peter and the Apostles, " Men and brethren, 
what shall we do ?" was answered by the call to repentance, 
to be signified, as under John, by baptism, but now into the 
name of Christ, that their sins might be remitted and they 
might receive the Holy Ghost. This offer of mercy was fol- 
lowed by the assurance which, stamping upon the Christian 
Church the like family and social character to that which 
marked the community of Israel, extended the blessing to the 
Gentiles also : — " The promise is unto you and to your chil- 
dren, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord 
our God shall call." Such were the chief points of this first 
apostolic sermon ; but much more was added, and all was con- 
cluded with exhorting such as would to come out and sepa- 
rate themselves from this perverse generation. All who " re- 
ceived the word" that is, who simply professed faith in the 
truth preached by Peter, were baptized and added to the 
Church ; and the pentecostal first-fruits thus offered to God 
were 3000 souls. 17 

Nor was this a passing excitement. The new converts be- 
came faithful disciples, adhering to the teachings of the Apos- 
tles and the fellowship of the Church ; observing Christ's insti- 
tution of breaking bread together, and constant in prayer. 
The four elements included in this summary of the daily life 
of the primitive Church deserve special notice : — (i.) The 
Apostles' doctrine included doubtless the whole body of di- 
vine truth, which was based on the writings of the Old Testa- 

17 Acts ii. 14-41. It must be remembered that a large number of these 
would leave Jerusalem after the feast. 



884 



History of tfie Apostles. 



Chap. XIIL 



ment, viewed in the new light of the Spirit bestowed uj>on the 
Apostles to lead them into all truth, as well as their own tes- 
timony to the life and death and especially the resurrection of 
the Lord, (ii.) The Fellowship 18 — though the word is often 
used in the wider generic sense which is now most familiar to 
us — seems here, as in many other passages, to denote that 
communication of the goods of this life which was needful to 
supply the necessities of the poorer brethren, and the collec- 
tion of which seems thus early to have formed a part of their 
united worship, (iii.) The breaking of bread alludes to the 
social custom which sprang up among this small community, 
severed much from the world around, of eating together dai- 
ly, as well as to their use of such opportunities for celebrating 
the Lord's Supper : while (iv.) the distinct mention of Prayer 
vindicates its place as an act of common Christian worship 
against the specious fallacy that it is a matter solely between 
each man and his God. So great a movement struck awe 
even into those who did not join it; and this feeling was kept 
alive by the miracles which the Apostles wrought. The first 
practical fruit of the new faith was seen in a reform of one of 
the worst faults of the Jewish character — its selfish rapacity 
and oppression of the poor. Forming a closely united com- 
munity, 19 they regarded their possessions as given for their 
common use, according as the necessities of each required. 
To this so-called community of goods our attention will pres- 
ently be recalled. Meanwhile we behold the Church in its 
first new-created purity, daily increased by sincere converts, 
and enjoying harmony within and the favor of the people 
without, before the beginning of persecution or declension. 20 

§ 5. The healing of a man above forty years old, who had 
been lame from his birth, by Peter and John 21 at the "Beau- 
tiful" gate of the Temple, in presence of all the people who 
were assembling to evening prayer, gave Peter another oppor- 
tunity of preaching the Saviour, in whose name alone the 
miracle was performed. His discourse was interrupted by 
the priests of the Sadducean party, and the captain of the 
guard of Levites that kept order in the Temple, who seized 
the Apostles, and carried them off to prison. The pretext was, 
no doubt, that they excited a tumult in the Temple, but theii 



18 Not "the Apostles'fellowship,"as 
the order in our version might suggest. 

19 The phrase r/aav liri to clvto cer- 
tainly means this, whether or not it 
refers specifically to their assembling 
in one place. 



20 Acts ii. 42-47. 

21 Acts iii. It is interesting to note 
the continuance of that close con- 
nection between these two Apostles, 
which we have already seen in the 
Gospels. 



A. D. 30-37. Sin of Ananias and Sapphira. 385' 

real offense was preaching the resurrection from the dead in 
the name of Jesus, But their arrest did not prevent their 
word being received by no less than 5000 believers. 22 

In presence of the Sanhedrim, assembled the next morning 
under Annas and Caiaprias, the high-priests, with their Sad- 
ducean kindred, Peter boldly avowed, for John and himself, 
that the miracle had been performed in the name of Jesus, 
who, though crucified by them, had been raised by God ; and 
whose name alone was given under heaven for the salvation 
of men. Then was fulfilled the promise of Christ, when he 
bade the disciples, on being brought before courts and rulers, 
to take no thought what they should say, for he would give 
them a mouth and wisdom which their adversaries should be 
unable to resist. Their freedom of speech, contrasted with 
their want of letters, left the council no doubt that they were 
worthy followers of Jesus ; and the presence of the healed 
man forbade their denial of the miracle. So they resolved to 
try half-measures, commanding the Apostles to cease from 
speaking in the name of Jesus. Peter and John plainly re- 
fused the compromise : — " Whether it be right in the sight of 
God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For 
ice can not but speak the things lohich we have seen and heard" 
Still the impression made upon the people by the miracle ren- 
dered it dangerous to attempt severity; and the council let 
the Apostles go, after renewing their threatenings. The as- 
sembled Church received them with a thanksgiving, which 
forms the earliest example of united Christian prayer ; and in 
which three things deserve especial notice : — the use of Script- 
ure models, including a direct quotation from the second 
Psalm ; the recital of facts, as well as the language of actual 
supplication ; and the exercise, in offering the latter, of that 
freedom of speech for the increase of which they prayed. The 
prayer was answered by another sign of God's presence, the 
shaking of the place in which they met, as Sinai was shaken 
of old ; 23 it was answered by a new outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit. The work of the Apostles was resumed with fresh 
power ; and the Church was endued still more manifestly with 
divine grace and harmony. 34 

The poor, who formed the great body of the disciples, were 



22 Acts iv. 1-4. That these five i form of expression, Kai tyevi]9r] 



thousand included the three thousand 
converts of the day of Pentecost seems 
most probable in itself (compare iii. 
11), and is quite consistent with the 

R 



aptO/jioQ, k. r. X., not, as in ii. 4\ 
Troo<JSTs9r)(ja.v. 

23 Comp. Haggai ii. 7, etc. 

24 Acts iv. 



386 History of the Apostles. Chap, xiii, 

preserved from want by sharing the wealth of the rest, accord- 
ing to their necessities. 

Hot that the first Christians adopted the fantastic and im- 
practicable theory, known in modern times by the name of 
communism, divesting themselves of individual property, 
and throwing all they had and earned into a common stock. 
They had indeed a common fund, which was divided by the 
Apostles among the poor ; and those who carried into full ef- 
fect the principle that " nought of the things which he pos- 
sessed was his own" sold their lands and houses, and laid the 
price at the Apostles' feet. But that this practice was not 
binding upon all is proved by the stress laid on the self-sac- 
rifice of Barnabas, 25 and by the express declaration of Pe- 
ter to Ananias, that he might have kept the land, if he had 
chosen, or even have used its price after it was sold. 26 St. 
Luke's language is indeed universal ; 27 but universal state- 
ments are always to be interpreted by more specific informa- 
tion. What was universally accepted was the principle that 
none should want while any of their brethren had the means 
of helping them; but, in carrying out this principle, they used 
that Christian liberty of beneficence which is far more effective 
than an enforced equality of wealth. 

§ 6. And now we come to the second great crime which 
stained the profession of Christianity, — the treason of Judas 
having been the first, — and which called down a judgment 
as signal. As among the followers of Christ on earth, so in 
the early Church, the love of money was the root of evil ; it 
was mingled with love of praise; and falsehood was the means 
of gratifying both. The story of Ananias aad Sapphira is too 
familiar to need relation. They seem to have been prompted 
by the desire to share the credit gained by Joses, surnamed 
Barnabas, a Levite of Cyprus, who sold his estate, and gave 
its price to the Apostles. They attempted to gain that praise, 
and yet to secure themselves from want, by keeping back a 
part of the price of their land, and bringing only the rest to 
the Apostles, — an acted lie, had it been left there. But Peter 
was moved by the Spirit to proclaim the deceit ; and, so far 
from extenuating it because the lie had not been uttered, he 
passed on all such prevarication the awful sentence, " Thou 
hast not lied unto men, but unto God." The conduct of Sap- 
phira is distinguished by the effrontery with which, in reply 



~ s Acts iv. 36, 37. What we have J - 6 Acts v. 4. 
to say of Barnabas is reserved for the r 37 Acts ii. 44, 45, iv. 32, 34, 
sequel. \ 



A.D. 30-37. 



Counsel of Gamaliel. 



387 



to Peter's question, she uttered the direct lie. The judgment 
that fell on both was analogous to the "cutting off a soul 
from the congregation " under the old dispensation, and gave, 
thus early in the history of the Church, a terrible warning of 
God's absolute requirement of sincerity in all his people. It 
caused great fear within the Church, and deterred the world- 
ly-minded from joining the disciples. But still the work of con- 
version went on. The Apostles and their followers assembled 
daily in the portico of the Temple named after Solomon. 
Their miracles were multiplied. The sick were carried on 
beds into the street, that at least Peter's shadow, as he passed 
by, might fall upon them ; and multitudes were brought into 
Jerusalem from the villages, and were all healed. 28 

§ 7. And this was all that the Sadducees had gained by 
their warning to Peter and John. Their indignation got the 
better of their policy, and they threw all the Apostles into 
prisom An angel opened the prison doors, and set them free 
during the night ; and when the Sanhedrim assembled in the 
morning, it was to hear that the prison had been found secure 
and guarded, but empty ; and that the prisoners were at that 
moment preaching in the Temple. Fear of the people again 
prevented open violence ; but the Apostles came at the re- 
quest of the captain of the temple-guard, and were placed be- 
fore the Sanhedrim, whom the high-priest now convened, to- 
gether with the Senate of Elders, that venerable body which 
had preserved its authority as representing the people through 
all the changes of the Jewish state. 29 In this second assembly, 
therefore, we see no longer only the Sanhedrim, headed by 
the Sadducean rulers, but the chiefs of the whole people tak- 
ing part in persecuting the Apostles. To the charge that 
they were trying to bring upon the people the blood of Christ 
— that blood which these very men had invoked on their own 
heads — Peter replied with the same boldness as before, but 
with a different result. Stung by his words, they were about 
to vote the death of the Apostles, when they were checked by 
the advice of a Pharisee named Gamaliel. This man, re- 
nowned as' one of the greatest doctors of the law, 30 and still 



2H Acts v. 1-16. 

33 Acts v. 21 : to avveSpiQV icai 
rraaav ri]V yepovoiav rtiv viCJv 'lopa- 
i/A. 

30 He is identified with the cele- 
brated Jewish doctor Gamaliel, who 
is known by the title of "the glory 
of the law," and was the first to whom 



the title " Eabban," "our master,'" 
was given. This Gamaliel was son 
of Rabbi Simeon, and grandson of 
the celebrated Hillel. He was presi- 
dent of the Sanhedrim under Tibe- 
rius, Caligula, and Claudius, and is 
reported to have died eighteen years 
before the destruction of Jerusalem 



388 



History of the Apostles. 



ClIAP. XIII. 



more as the preceptor of St. Paul, 31 gave the sage counsel to 
wait and see what would come of the new doctrine, if let alone. 
It was an age of pretenders, such as Theudas and Judas of 
Galilee, who had ended by breaking out into open revolt and 
being destroyed by the power of Rome. Such too would be 
the end of these men, if they were impostors, — an end which 
would save the rulers trouble and danger. But another alter- 
native was possible. The thing might be indeed from God ; 
and if so, to overthrow it would be impossible, to resist it. 
would incur the guilt of fighting against God. The emphatic 
clearness with which Gamaliel puts this, as far more than a 
bare possibility, throws a flood of light on the convictions of 
the learned and thinking men among the Pharisees, and helps 
us to form a juster estimate of Saul's guilt as* a persecutor. 
The jealousy between the Sadducees and Pharisees moved 
the latter for the time to protect the teachers of a resurrec- ■ 
tion ; but they soon surpassed their rivals in the fury of per- 
secution. The advice of Gamaliel was adopted by the Council, 
whose anger needed, however, to be gratified by some punish- 
ment; so they inflicted on the Apostles the scourging permit- 
ted by the law, and let them go, again forbidding them to 
speak in the name of Jesus. Assured by this commencement 
of a share in their Saviour's suffering and shame, that he 
deemed them worthy to follow him, they continued, as before, 
to teach and preach Jesus Christ, both in the Temple and 
from house to house. 32 

§ 8. Thus far we have met with no indications of any insti- 
tutions for the government of the Church. None had been 
prescribed by Jesus ; but he had taught his followers those 
principles which would guide them to institutions as they 
were wanted. As yet no such want had been felt : all had 
been supplied by the presence of the Apostles and the un- 
broken harmony of the brethren. But now came in the hu- 
miliating fact, which has ever since cast its shadow over the 
Church, that every development of doctrine and of discipline 
is the fruit of some error or imperfection. Doubtless more 
is gained than lost by the working of this principle ; chiefly 
because it leaves all the glory to God, and shames man's 
boast of growing perfection. 

There were two sorts of persons in the Church, the Hebrews 
and the Hellenists.™ In their widest significance, the words 






He was succeeded in the presidency 
of the Sanhedrim hy his son Simeon, 
who perished in the siege. 



31 Acts xxii. 3. 32 Acts v. 17-42. 
33 This word QEWrjviarai, which 
our translators distinguish from "EX- 



A. D. 30-37. Appointment of Deacons, .389 

Hellenist and Hellenism described that engrafting of Greek 
influence upon a native stock which resulted from Alexander's 
conquest of Western Asia. The mere use of the Greek Ian 
guage, as it came to prevail in the conquered countries, con- 
verted a true native into a " Hellenist." Thus the Jews of 
Palestine came to apply the term to their brethren — though 
of Jewish blood as pure as theirs — who were scattered 
throughout the Gentile world. The use of a distinct name 
was sure to aid the sense of fancied superiority on the part 
of those possessing the Holy Land, the sacred city and the 
Temple; a claim which the Hellenists of course resented. 
These jealousies were carried into the Christian Church, 
which numbered many Hellenist converts as the result of 
Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost. The rapid in- 
crease of numbers had made it very difficult for the Apostles 
to distribute the common fund; and the first sufferers were 
naturally the widows, who, from the position held by women 
in the East, were at once the most needy and the least able 
to. press their claims. It is very probable that the Hellenist 
widows, in particular, may have been neglected through being 
personally little known. At all events, this feeling rose up 
among the Hellenists ; and they complained, not against the 
.Apostles, but against the Hebrews, perhaps those who assist- 
ed the Apostles in the daily distribution. Instead of clinging 
to the influence conferred by these " temporalities," the Apos- 
tles welcomed the occasion for their relief from the " service 
of tables," which hindered their entire devotion to prayer and 
.the ministry of the word. They desired the brethren to 
choose from among themselves seven men, at once held in es- 

\i]veg by rendering the former Gre- \ by peculiar habits, and not by de- 
cians and the latter Greeks} is tised in scent. Thus the Hellenists, as a 



one other passage of the Acts, where j body, included not only the prose- 
Paul, on his first visit to Jerusalem, j lytes of Greek (or foreign) parentage, 
disputed, as Stephen had done, with | but also those Jews who, by settling 
the party whom he perhaps supposed j in foreign countries, had adopted the 
■most open to his arguments (Acts ix. j prevalent form of the current Greek 
25)). " Grecians " are also mentioned j civilization, and with it the use of the 
in the A.V., in the account of the! common Greek dialect, to the exclu- 
jfoundation of the Church at Antioch j sion of the Aramaic, which was the 
(Acts xi. 20), where, however, the ; national representative of the ancient 
context seems to require the reading .Hebrew. Hellenism was thus a typo 
"Greeks" ("EXA^tc), which is sup- of life, and not an indication of ori- 
.ported by great external evidence, ! gin. Hellenists might be Greeks 



as the proper antithesis to "Jews" 
in v. 19 : the word used in contradis- 
tinction to .Hellenists being Hebrews 



but when the latter term is used 
("EXXriveg, John xii. 20), -the point of 
race and not of creed is that which i$ 



The name marks a class distinguished 'foremost in the mind of the writer. 



390 



History of the Apostles. 



Chap. XIIL 



teem, for their character, 34 and distinguished for wisdom and 
spiritual gifts, who were ordained to this office by the Apos- 
tles, with prayer and the imposition of hands. 35 

Their names were Stephen, who is especially mentioned as 
full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, Philip, Prochorus, Mca- 
nor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas. The last was a proselyte 
of Antioch, and the Greek names of the rest favor the idea 
that they were Hellenists, which would give an additional sg- 
curity against any further ground for complaint. 36 

There can be no reasonable doubt that these were the first 
Deacons 37 of the Church, though that name is not used in 
the narrative. Doubtless the title followed the exercise of 
the office; and those who were at first called "the Seven" 38 
received the name of " servants " from the service they per- 
formed. 39 In the Epistles of Paul, the name has already pass- 
ed into a distinct official title, and the qualifications which he 
assigns to deacons correspond exactly to the functions of 
"the Seven." 

This institution gave a fresh impulse to the Gospel. We 
have already seen a Levite (Barnabas) among the converts ; 
but now the new religion was embraced by many of the 
priests : — " The word of God increased ; and the number of 
the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great 
company of the priests were obedient to the faith." It was 
not merely that the Apostles obtained more freedom ; but the 
deacons themselves came forward with a zeal suited to their 
eminent position. Chosen for their spiritual gifts, they were 
not likely to confine themselves to duties merely secular. 
Philip, " one of the seven," is also called " Philip the Evangel- 
ist ;" and he was doubtless the same who converted the Sa- 
maritans, and received the Ethiopian eunuch into the Church. 49 



34 Maprvpofikvovg, icitnessed-to. 

35 As a designation to the office, not 
a conferring of the Holy Spirit, for 
that was a previous qualification. 

~ 6 Acts vi. 1-6. 

37 Some still dispute the point, but 
without good reason. 

38 Acts xxi. 8. 

39 The facility of the English lan- 
guage, in using a foreign word to dis- 
tinguish a specific sense from the 
generic, often gives to a technical 
term an appearance of precision 
which it does not possess in the orig- 
inal. This is well seen if we re-trans- 



late the generic word by the specific. 
In this case, we should find the moth- 
er of Jesus giving orders to the dea- 
cons at the marriage feast at Cana; 
the Apostle describing himself and 
his fellow-preachers as ' ' able deacons 
of the New Covenant ;" and, in clas- 
sical Greek, Hermes the deacon of the 
Olympian deities. 

40 Acts viii. That this was not 
Philip the Apostle is clear from the 
action of the Apostles at Jerusalem, 
in sending Peter and John to give 
the Holy Spirit to the converts at 
Samaria. 



A.D. 30-37. 



Stephen before the Sanhedrim. 



391 



Still more conspicuous was Stephen for his faith and the pow- 
er of his teaching, and the wonders and miracles he perform- 
ed. His zeal soon earned for him the glory of being the Pro- 
tomartyr of the Christian Church. 

§ 9. The success of Stephen was, for some reason, peculiar- 
ly odious to the Hellenistic Jews, who formed a sort of com- 
bined opposition to him. These opponents belonged to " the 
synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, 
and of those from Cilicia and Asia." 41 The Cyrenians and 
Alexandrians represented the Jews of Africa, who were very 
numerous in those two capitals. The Asiatics represent those 
of Western Asia in general, and not only of the province ; 
and the express mention of the Cilicians prepares us for the 
part taken by Saul of Tarsus. Hitherto the Sadducees had 
taken the lead in resisting Christianity, chiefly from motives 
of policy ; and the Pharisees had stood aloof, feeling some 
favor toward the teachers of a resurrection. But now the 
latter party were committed to the conflict by the zeal of the 
Hellenists for the traditions of the law. Worsted in argu- 
ment by Stephen's wisdom and spiritual power, they suborned 
(as against his Master) false witnesses, who accused him be- 
fore the Sanhedrim of blasphemy against the Temple and the 
Law, in saying that Jesus of Nazareth should destroy the holy 
place and change the institutions of Moses. The presence 
Avhich Christ had promised to his disciples was shown, be- 
fore Stephen opened his lips, by the very aspect of his counte- 
nance, which seemed to all in the council like that of an 
angel. 42 

The defense which he made, on the invitation of the high- 
priest, is one of the most memorable passages of the New 
Testament. It places the truth of Christianity on the basis 
of its relation to the history of the Old Covenant. That his- 
tory is recounted, from the call of Abraham to the mission of 
Moses, to prove that, in the whole process of forming the 
Jewish state and laws, there was a gradually developed cove- 
nant and promise of better things, which was as constantly 
resisted by the unbelief and apostasy of the people. While 
thus laying the ground for retorting upon his accusers the 



41 " Libertines " is a Latin word — 
Libertini — that is, " freedmen. " The 
Libertini here mentioned are proba- 
bly Jews who, having been taken pris- 
oners by Pompey and other Roman 
generals in the Syrian wars, had been 
reduced to slavery, and had afterward 



been emancipated, and returned, per- 
manently or for a time, to the country 
of their fathers. Of the existence 
of a large body of Jews in this posi- 
tion at Rome we have abundant evi- 
dence. 

42 Acts vi. 9-15, 



.392 History of the ApostCes. Chap., xin, 

charge that it was they and their fathers who had made void 
the law, he displays in the disobedience of the Israelites to 
Moses a prophetic sign of their own rebellion against the 
prophet whom God raised up, as he had raised him, 48 nay, 
whom they had actually resisted in the person of the Angel 
who was with the congregation in the wilderness. 

Then, as bearing upon the other charge of blasphemously 
foretelling the destruction of the Temple, he shows how, 
though they had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, 
they had plunged into every form of idolatry, and taken up 
the tabernacle of Moloch ; and, passing on to the bringing in 
of the tabernacle by Joshua, and Solomon's performance of 
his father's ,desire to build a house for God, he comes boldly 
to the great point in dispute. Not in his own words, but in 
those used by Solomon himself at the very dedication of the 
Temple, and re-echoed by Isaiah, he declares that the Most 
High Jehovah has a truer and far nobler dwelling than any 
house that man can build him, — the temple of the universe 
which His own hand hath made, and of whose materials man 
can at best frame some small part into a house, which is God's 
Work before it is theirs. The inference from the whole argu- 
ment is that hypocrisy lay at the root of their pretended zeal 
for the Law they had ever broken and the Temple they had 
constantly profaned, while blind to the spiritual sense and use 
of both. Overpowered with holy indignation, the accused 
becomes the accuser, denouncing his judges as the betrayers 
and murderers of the Just One, each one of whose prophets 
their fathers had persecuted and slain. The whole argument 
is summed up in the one phrase, " Ye stiff-necked " — the epi- 
thet applied by Moses to their fathers, — ;" ye " who, while 
boasting of circumcision, are " uncircumcised in heart and 
ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost : as your fathers did, 
so do ye" The whole course of their history* is brought to 
this point, that they themselves had never kept the law, which 
they falsely charged him with blaspheming, though they had 
" received it by the dispensation of angels." 

Stung to their very hearts, they threw oft" all the restraints 
of a judicial court, gnashing their teeth for rage, as they cut- 
short his defense, Amid the tumult, Stephen stood gazing 
up to heaven, and saying, with calm rapture, — " Behold I see 
the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right 
hand of God ; " — not sitting, as is elsewhere said, but as it 

43 The phraso " a prophet like unto me " (v. 37) misleads the English 
reader. 






A.D. 30-37. 



Martyrdom of Stephen, 



303 



were stepping forward to welcome the first martyr into 
heaven. Their rage now passed all bounds. Stopping their 
ears against his blasphemy, and not staying even to pass sen- 
tence, they rushed upon him as one man, hurried him out of 
the city, and stoned him to death. His last words were those 
of his Master on the cross, commending his spirit to the Lord 
Jesus himself, as to God, and praying for his murderers, that 
the sin might not be laid to their charge. " And when he had 
said this, he fell asleep" is the language in which the sacred 
writer closes the scene of violence with holy calmness, and 
with the glorious hope of an awakening to eternal life. 44 The 
zeal and courage of the same class of converts to which 
Stephen himself belonged, the Hellenists and proselytes, who 
are included under the general denomination of " devout 
men," honored his mangled remains with an amount of 
funeral state and lamentation expressed by two words which 
are used only here in the New Testament. 45 

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." 
Never was this more true than in the death of Stephen. 
Among the Hellenists of Cilicia, who had provoked the con- 
troversy, was " a young man named Saul," a Jew of Tarsus, 
of the tribe of Benjamin, of the purest descent, who had been 
brought up a disciple of the great Rabban Gamaliel. We 
have his own testimony to that blind zeal for the law, which 
led him to take a part in Stephen's death only second to that 
of the witnesses themselves, by taking charge of their clothes, 
while they cast the first stones, as directed by the law; and 
we have too his own bitter and repeated confession of that 
great sin. Yet this was the very man raised up by God to 
supply the place of Stephen. St. Luke suggests this con- 



44 'EKoifir]9ri : the word properly de- 
scribes the retiring to rest in one's 
bed. The same truth is embodied 
in the beautiful name for a place of 
Christian burial, cemetery (KoiprjTfjpi- 
ov, a sleeping -place), for which some 
have most perversely substituted the 
heathen Necropolis, as if they wished 
to contradict the words, "He is not 
dead, but sleepeihP The martyrdom 
of Stephen is connected with the dis- 
puted question, whether the Sanhe- 
drim had at this time the power of 
inflicting death. The truth seems to 
be that their turbulent spirit was ever 
ready to break through the restraints 
imposed upon them bv the Roman 
R2 



government. The execution of Ste- 
phen seems to have been a tumultu- 
ous proceeding during a suspension 
of the Roman government, as will 
presently be seen. There was an 
occasion on which Christ himself 
narrowly escaped stoning within the 
precincts of the Temple (John viii. 
59). The scene of the martyrdom 
has been variously fixed by tradition 
at the Damascus gate on the north of 
the city, and at the gate on the east- 
ern wall at the end of the Via Dolo- 
rosa, now called St. Stephen's Gate. 

45 Acts viii. 2: ovv zko fiioav $1 
rbv 2,T£<pavov dvSpeg 6v\aj3eXg Kai kiroi* 
ijaavTO k o 77 e t bv [ikyav ctt' avr<f). 



394 



History of the Apostles. 



Chap. XIII 



nectioii by the words, "And Saul was consenting to his 
death." 40 

The saying of Augustin — " Si Stephanus non orasset, eccle- 
sia Paulum non haberet" — beautifully expresses the view of 
Stephen's position as the forerunner of St. Paul. But it is an 
aspect that has been much more forcibly drawn out in mod- 
ern times. Not only was his martyrdom (in all probability) 
the first means of converting St. Paul, in whose conversion 
Stephen's prayer for his murderers was fulfilled and whose 
conscience always bore the sting of that day's great crime; 
but in his doctrine also he was the anticipator, as, had he lived, 
he would have been the propagator, of the new phase of 
Christianity, of which St. Paul became the main support. His 
denunciations of local worship — the stress which he lays upon 
the spiritual side of Jewish history — his freedom in treating 
that history — the very turns of expression that he uses — are 
all Pauline. The discourses and epistles of St. Paul repro- 
duce both the arguments and phraseology which he had heard 
from St. Stephen's lips ; for we can not doubt that Paul was 
present in the Sanhedrim, though he was not qualified to 
vote." 47 

The martyrdom of Stephen forms an epoch in the early 
history of the Church, the date of which is the more interest- 
ing on account of its bearing upon St. Paul's life. But the nar- 
rative in the Acts supplies us with no chronological data, from 
the day of Pentecost in a.d. 30 down to the famine under 
Claudius and the death of Herod Agrippa I. in a.d. 44. One 
tradition fixes the martyrdom of Stephen as early as a.d. 30; 
but it is quite incredible that the events of the first seven 
chapters of the Acts should have been crowded into a single 
year; nor could so early a date be reconciled with the few 
certain indications concerning the period of Paul's conversion. 
That this event followed at no long interval after Stephen's mar- 
tyrdom seems clear; and various indications concur to place 
it somewhere within the limits of Caligula's four years' reign. 
Coming to narrower limits, we shall see presently that the 
srongest arguments and the best modern opinions concur in 
fixing the conversion of St. Paul about a.d. 37. Nor are we 
without some weighty independent evidence to confirm the 



40 Acts viii. 1 : separated from their 
eonnection by the division of the 
chapters. 

47 Acts xvii. 24 ; Galatians iii. 19 ; 
Romans ii. 17-29. See Conybeare 
and Howson's St. Paul, chap. ii. In 



the persecution, however, which fol- 
lowed the death of Stephen, Saul ap- 
pears giving his vote as a full mem- 
ber of the Sanhedrim. Acts xxvi. 
10 : dvaipovfievcjv re avrdv Kari]Vtyfta 



A.D, 30-37, Date of Stephen '-s Martyrdom. 395 

date thus suggested for the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Such 
acts of violence, in contempt of the Roman prerogative of life 
and death, were usually perpetrated during a vacancy in the 
procuratorship of Judaea. An example occurs in the martyr- 
dom of James the Just, in the interval between the death of 
Festus and the arrival of Albinus as his successor (a.d. 62); 
when, just like Stephen and those who suffered after him 3 
James and other Christians were condemned by the Sanhe= 
diim, at the instance of the high-priest Ananus, and stoned to 
death. In the present case, the evidence for an interregnum 
in the procuratorship is all the stronger from the repeated 
executions which marked the persecution that ensued on the 
death of Stephen. 48 Now we are able to fix the date of such 
an interregnum. It was in the latter part of a.d. 36 that 
Pilate was summoned before Vitellius, the prefect of Syria, 
on the complaint of the Samaritans, against whom he had 
perpetrated his crowning outrage. He was deposed by Vi- 
tellius, and sent to Rome for trial by the emperor ; but, before 
his arrival, Tiberius had died, on the 16th of March a.d. 37. 
Pilate's departure from Judaea must, therefore, be placed just 
at the end of a.d. 36 ; and no successor arrived for a consid- 
erable time. Meanwhile, Vitellius visited Jerusalem, with 
Herod Antipas, at the Passover (March 19th) of a.d. 37; 
when he deposed Joseph Caiaphas, the creature of Pilate, 
from the high-priesthood. Having left the city on his return 
to Antioch, he received orders from Tiberius to aid Herod in 
his war against Aretas. Therefore, retracing his steps to- 
ward Arabia Petraea, Vitellius was again at Jerusalem at 
Pentecost (May 9th). On the arrival of the news of the, 
death of Tiberius, four days after the Feast, Vitellius left 
Jerusalem, abandoning the cause of Herod. Here, then, was 
just one of those opportunities of which Jewish turbulence 
was ever ready to take advantage. Moreover, it was almost 
always at one of the great festivals that these outbreaks took 
place ; and such a season is indicated by the presence of a 
large body of Hellenists at Jerusalem, just as at the great 
Pentecost of Acts ii., and at the Feast when Paul was seized. 
All this points tc the Pentecost, May, a.d. 3 V, as the date of 
Stephen's martyrdom; but it would also be consistent with 
the general tenor of the argument to infer that the event 
took place either about the Passover of that year, or at the 
Feast of Tabernacles of a.d. 36, when Pilate's authority was 
tottering and he may have been ready to connive at any act oi 

4S Acts xxvi. 10, 



,396 History of the Apostles. Chap, xiil 

violence committed by Caiaphas and his party. On the 
latter supposition, the period of anarchy following the dis- 
grace of Pilate would prolong the opportunity for the perse- 
cution conducted by Saul. At all events, these arguments, 
with the mutual confirmation of the dates for the martyrdom 
of Stephen and the conversion of Saul, which evidently fol- 
lowed close upon it, seem clearly to bring both events within 
the compass of a year, from the autumn of a.d. 36 to the 
autumn of a.d. 37. 48b 

§ 10. This first triumph of the foes of Christianity gave 
the signal for a general persecution, into which Saul entered 
with the fiercest zeal, committing men and women alike to 
prison, scourging them in the synagogues, and trying to make 
them blaspheme the name of Christ, and giving his vote for 
the death of those on whom the Sanhedrim usurped the pow- 
er of passing capital sentence. The result was a general dis- 
persion of the disciples from Jerusalem, the Apostles, how- 
ever, remaining to watch over the common welfare. This 
movement was the first great cause of the Gospel being car- 
ried beyond the confines of Judaea: — "They that were scat- 
tered abroad went in different directions, preaching the 
word." 49 We shall see presently that some of them went 
through Phoenicia into Syria as far as Antioch, and across to 
the island of Cyprus, confining their ministry at first to the 
Jews, but soon venturing to preach Christ to the Greeks at 
Antioch. 60 Meanwhile the narrative of St. Luke follows the 
progress of the Gospel in the Holy Land, through the three 
great steps of the conversion of the Samaritans, of the Ethio- 
pian eunuch, and of the Roman centurion, both of whom 
were already proselytes. Thus early are the representatives 
of races alien to the Jews, both at home and in the regions of 
the east, south and west, brought into the Church, while the 
conversion of Saul prepares for the preaching of the Gospel 
,to the Gentiles. 

The daily ministrations of relief probably ceased with the 
dispersion of the disciples ; and Philip, the worthy colleague 
of Stephen, went and preached Christ in the city of Sama- 
ria, 61 a work which the Jewish prejudices of most of the dis- 



48b Lewin, Fasti Sacri, Introd. chap, 
-ix., and s. a. a.d. 37. The above 
argument is in substance that of Mr. 
Xewin, who adopts the date of Pen- 
tecost ad. 37, withoitt absolutely re- 
jecting those of Passover a.d. 37. 



Comp. chap. xiv. §10: On the 
Chronology of Paul's Life. 

49 Acts viii. 4. 50 Acts xi. 19, 20. 

51 Acts viii. 5. The absence of the 
definite article leaves room for the 
supposition that this " city of Sama- 



or Tabernacles (Sept. 24, a.d. 36) ria" may have been Sychar; but is 



A.D. 30-37. Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. 397 

ciples would have prevented their undertaking. How far 
our Lord's own ministry at Sychar (Shechem) had affected 
the Samaritans in general, we can hardly judge, unless per- 
haps from his rejection by one of their villages. But since 
that time, the people of the city had been entirely led away 
by the arts of a magician named Simon (usually called Si- 
mon Magus), who seems to have given himself out and to 
have been received as the Messiah. But his tricks of sorcery 
could bear no comparison with the simple power of Philip's 
miracles, casting out unclean spirits, and healing the palsied 
and the lame. The people received his preaching of the 
kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ with joyful 
unanimity, and both men and women were baptized. Simon, 
not the only impostor of his class who has seen gain in the 
profession of godliness — perhaps too, with the ordinary mix- 
ture of self-deception, fancying that he might learn new arts 
from Philip's superior skill — Simon was himself baptized, 
and remained with Philip, wondering at his miracles. 52 
Meanwhile, the tidings reached Jerusalem; and Peter and 
John being sent by the Apostles to Samaria, conferred on the 
converts the gift of the Holy Ghost. 53 This new wonder was 
a fresh stimulus to Simon's lust of power and gain. He of- 
fered money to the Apostles, as the price of their giving him 
the same power. Peter's indignant rebuke and exhortation 
to repentance so far affected Simon that he asked the Apos- 
tles to pray for him, that he might escape the sentence they 
had denounced ; but he gave no sign of genuine repentance. 54 
His later history is obscured by superstitious legends, but 
thus much seems clear — that he continued to mix the profes- 
sion of a spurious Christianity with the practice of his mag- 
ical arts, and that he came to a miserable end. 55 The two 
Apostles did not return to Jerusalem till they had preached 
throughout the country of the Samaritans. 56 

§ 11. Meanwhile Philip was directed by an angel to follow 
the road from Jerusalem to Gaza through the south-western 
desert. There was another traveler before him on the way, 
an Ethiopian eunuch, who held high office at the court of 
Candace, queen of the great Ethiopian monarchy which had 

commonlv understood of Samaria it- ! 54 Vers. 19-24. 



self, the Roman Sebaste. 

62 Acts viii. 5-13. 
, M . Vers. 14-17. Not, however, by 
.their own powers but by prayer, ac- 
companied with the laying on of their 
hands. 



55 On the later history of Simon 
Magus, see Notes and Illustrations. 
The memory of his peculiar guilt has 
been perpetuated in the word simony, 
as applied to all traffic in spiritual 
offices. 6G Acts viii. 25- 



398 



History of the Apostles. 



Chap. XIIL 



long flourished to the south of Egypt with its capital at Me* 
roe. 57 Even in that remote region, a large body of Jews had 
been established under the Egyptian King Psammetichus, 
and this* Ethiopian minister had become a proselyte. 58 He 
had performed the long journey to worship at Jerusalem; 
and the great events that had occurred there may have influ- 
enced the religious meditations which occupied him as his 
chariot bore him leisurely toward the frontier. For he was 
reading aloud Isaiah's great prophecy of Christ's sufferings, 
and wondering what the prophet meant. At the impulse of the 
Spirit, Philip ran forward to overtake the chariot, and broke 
in with a question which led the eunuch to ask him to mount 
the chariot ; and, as they went along, Philip preached to him 
Christ from the text furnished by the prophet. As he spoke, 
the true light shone into the mind of the pious and docile 
learner ; and, when a pool or spring of water by the roadside 
suggested to him the question, " What prevents my being 
baptized?" — Philip complied at once. 59 The chariot is stop- 
ped. Both descend from it to the water ; and both were re- 
turning to it after the act of baptism was performed, when 
the Spirit caught away Philip from the eyes of the eunuch, 
who went on his way rejoicing. How far he was instrumental 
in spreading the Gospel among his countrymen we know not ; 
for our information of the planting of Christianity in Abys- 
sinia and Sennaar (the region about Meroe) dates only from 
the fourth century. But his story is most memorable as a 
leading example of individual conversion and as a lesson not 
to limit God's methods of working it. Meanwhile Philip 
went on his mission to the cities of the Philistine plain, from 
Azotus (Ashdod) where he was again first seen, through all 
the maritime region as far as Caesarea. 00 At that city he 
seems to have fixed his abode ; for we find him there, eight- 
een or nineteen years later, receiving Paul and his companions 
into his house, on their final journey to Jerusalem. He was 
still remembered as one " of the Seven," but was also dis- 
tinguished by the title of "Evangelist;" and he had four 
daughters endowed with prophetic gifts. 61 We are not with- 
out some indication of the date of these transactions. The 
eunuch was of course returning from one of the three great 






57 Candace is a title, like Pharaoh. 
Dion Cass. (liv. 5) and other ancient 
authors % mention queens of Meroe 
with this name. 

i8 Some suppose him to be a Jew, 
but St. Luke calls him ctvrjp kldio^. 



59 The question and answer in ver. 
37 are spurious, the addition of one 
who could not see that the eunuch had 
already shown the spirit of true faith, 

eo Acts viii. 16-40. 

C1 Acts xxi. 8-10. 



A.D. 30-37. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



399 



festivals, and which that was may perhaps be inferred from 
the fact that the Book of Isaiah furnished the lessons for the 
Feast of Tabernacles. If the force of this argument be ad- 
mitted, the conversion of the eunuch will be placed after the 
Feast of Tabernacles in a.d. 37 or 38 ; according as we as* 
sign the earlier or later date to Stephen's martyrdom. 

§ 12. The same city of Cassarea, the Roman capital of Ju- 
daea, was the scene of the third great step in the spread of 
the Gospel within the Holy Land, the conversion of the cen- 
turion Cornelius. Besides their relative national positions 3 
there was still another difference between the two cases: — - 
the eunuch seems to have been a " proselyte of righteousness," 
fully received into the Jewish Church by circumcision; but 
Cornelius and his friends were uncircumcised, 62 and so only 
" proselytes of the gate." Though their conversion did not 
take place till after that greater event which raised up the 
chosen messenger of the Gospel to the Gentiles, it is mention- 
ed by anticipation here, in connection with that of the out- 
cast Samaritans, and of the more favored Ethiopian proselyte. 

We pause, therefore, at the point at which the preaching 
of the Gospel, begun from Jerusalem according to Christ's 
command, had embraced all classes of the Jewish name — the 
pure Jews and the despised Samaritans, the representatives 
of the Dispersion, and the circumcised proselyte from the far 
southern region which Christ himself had called the ends of 
the earth. Such were the results accomplished about the 
epoch marked by the death of the Emperor Tiberius (a.d. 37,) 
and distinguished also, as we have already seen, by the dis- 
grace of Caiaphas and Pilate, the two chief actors in the 
death of Christ. 

62 Acts x. 28, xi. 3. 



-h 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



SIMON MAGUS. 

The history of Simon Magus is a 
remarkable one. According to Jus- 
tin Martyr (Apol. i. 26) he was born 
at Gitton, a village of Samaria, iden- 
tified with the modern Kuryet Jit, 
near Ndbulus. He was probably ed- 



ucated at Alexandria, and there be- 
came acquainted with the eclectic 
tenets of the Gnostic school. Either 
then or subsequently he was a pupil 
of Dositbeus, who preceded him as a 
teacher of Gnosticism in Samaria, and 
whom he supplanted with the aid of 
Cleobius. He is first introduced to 



400 



Notes and Illustrations. 



chai>. xia 



us in the Bible as practicing magical 
arts in a city of Samaria, perhaps 
Sychar (Acts viii. 5 : comp. John iv. 
5), and with such success, that he was 
pronounced to be " the power of God 
which is called great " * (Acts viii. 
10). Simon's history, subsequently 
to his meeting with Peter, is involved 
in difficulties. Early Church histo- 
rians depict him as the pertinacious 
foe of the Apostle Peter, whose move- 
ments he followed for the purpose of 
seeking encounters, in which he was 
signally defeated. In his journeys 
he was accompanied by a female 
named Helena, who had previously 
been a prostitute at Tyre, but who 
jwas now elevated to the position of 
.his tvvoia f or divine intelligence. 
His first encounter with Peter took 
place at Csesarea Stratonis (accord- 
ing to the Constitutiones A]>ostolicce, 
vi. 8), whence he followed the Apostle 
to Rome. Eusebius makes no men- 
tion of this first encounter, but repre- 
sents Simon's journey to Rome as fol- 
lowing immediately after the inter- 
view recorded in Scripture (H. E. ii. 
14) ; but his chronological statements 
are evidently confused ; for in the 
very same chapter he states that the 

* The A. V. omits the word Kakov/jtevn, and 
Venders the ■words " the great power of God." 
Rut this is to lose the whole point of the des- 
ignation. The Samaritans described the an- 
gels as <Wu,ueif, ?'. C, uncreated influences 
proceeding from God. They intended to dis- 
tinguish Simon from such an order of beings 
by adding the words " wliich is called great," 
meaning thereby the source of all power : in 
other words, the Supreme Deity. Simon was 
recognized as the incai-nation of this power. 
He announced himself as in a special sense 
"some great one" (Acts viii. 9). 

tin the ewoia, as embodied in Helena's 
person, we recognize the dualistic element of 
Gnosticism, derived from the Manichean sys- 
tem. The Gnostics appear to have recog- 
nized the duva/j.19 and the ewota, as the two 
original principles from whose junction all be- 
ings emanated. Simon and Helena were the 
incarnations in wliich these principles re- 
sided, 



meeting between the two at Rome 
took place in the reign of Claudius, 
some ten years after the events in 
Samaria. Justin Martyr, with great- 
er consistency, represents Simon as 
having visited Rome in the reign of 
Claudius, and omits all notice of an 
encounter with Peter. His success 
there was so great that he was dei- 
fied, and a statue was erected in his 
honor, with the inscription " Simoni 
Deo Sancto " (Apol. i. 26, 56). The 
above statements can be reconciled 
only by assuming that Simon made 
two expeditions to Rome, the first in 
the reign of Claudius, the second, in 
which he encountered Peter, in the 
reign of Nero, about the year 68 ? 
and even this takes for granted the 
disputed fact of St. Peter's visit to 
Rome. His death is associated with 
the meeting in question: according 
to Hippolytus, the earliest authority 
on the subject, Simon was buried 
alive at his own request, in the confi- 
dent assurance that he would rise 
again on the third day {Adv. llcer. 
vi. 20). According to another ac- 
count, he attempted to fly in proof 
of his supernatural power ; in answer 
to the prayers of Peter, he fell and 
sustained a fracture of his thigh and 
ankle bones ( Constitut. Aposiol. ii. 14, 
vi. 9) ; overcome with vexation, he 
committed suicide (Arnob. Adv. Gent. 
ii. 7). Simon is generally pronounced 
by early writers to have been the 
founder of heresy. It is difficult to 
understand how he was guilty of her- 
esy in the proper sense of the term, 
inasmuch as he was not a Christian : 
perhaps it refers to his attempt to com- 
bine Christianity with Gnosticism. 
He is also reported to have forged 
works professing to emanate frora 
Christ and his disciples. 



. 




Tarsus. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL, A.D. 37-40. 



1. Subject of the Second Part of the Acts — Its relation to St. Paul's 
Epistles — Outline of St. Paul's life — His first appearance, as a perse- 
cutor — Review. of his life. §2. Saul's birthplace and parentage — His 
Roman citizenship. § 3. His trade of tent-making — His education in 
Greek learning at Tarsus, and in Rabbinical lore at Jerusalem. § 4. 
His rigid Pharisaism, and zeal for the law — His persecuting spirit, in 
its relation to the teaching of Gamaliel — Confessions of his own state 
of mind. § 5. His part in the martyrdom of Stephen and the ensuing 
persecution. § 6. The three accounts of St. Paul's conversion — (i.) The 
light, and Paul's vision of Jesus — (ii.) The sound, and Paul's colloquy 
with the Lord — The part of the by-standers in the scene — Its outward 
and inward aspects — (iii.) The return to Damascus, and mission of 
Ananias — Paul restored to sight, and baptized. § 7. His conversion 
an evidence of the truth of Christianity. § 8. His designation to the 
Apostleship— His ministry at Damascus and retreat to Arabia — His es- 
cape from Damascus to Jerusalem (hisjirsi visit after his conversion) — 
His reception by the Apostles and the Church — His relations to Peter. 
§ 9. His vision in the Temple, and full commission to the Gentiles. 
§ 10. The Churches of Judasa rest and prosper — Chronology of the 
Acts, and especially of St. Paul's life — The rest of the Churches view- 
ed in relation to the state of Judaea under Caligula. 



402 



Conversion of St. Paul 



Chap. XIV. 



§ 1. The last chapter opened with a remark on the mistake 
of viewing the " Acts " as a biographical history of the Apos- 
tles. A similar caution may be given against looking upon 
the latter part of the book as a biography of St. Paul. " The 
Apostle of the Gentiles " is the central figure, because the Con- 
version of the Gentiles is the main subject; and for some 
time the Church at Jerusalem is still kept in view. This por- 
tion of the history, however, requires to be illustrated by all 
that we can learn of the Apostle's life. For this the materials 
are to be found in a comparison of Paul's Epistles with the 
"Acts." Such a comparison was long since developed by 
Paley into a powerful confirmation of the truth of the Gospel 
which Paul preached. 1 More searching criticism has revealed 
new difficulties ; but the more they are discussed, the mor ? 
do they illustrate the soundness of the main argument. That 
argument is the more forcible from the obvious fact, that the 
Epistles were written without any reference to the history ; 
nor does the canon of the New Testament indicate any at- 
tempt to combine them with it, so as to form what we should 
call in modern phrase the Apostle's " Life and Letters." The 
early traditions of the Church appear to have left almost un- 
touched the space of time for which we possess those sacred 
and abundant sources of knowledge ; and they aim only at 
supplying a few particulars in the biography beyond the 
points at which the narrative of the Acts begins and termi- 
nates. 

While bearing in mind the caution against regarding the 



1 Since Paley's Horce Paulince, the 
most important works on the subject 
have been The Life and Letters of St. 
.Paul, by Conybeare and Howson, and 
the Life of St. Paul and the Fasti 
Sacri of Mr. Lewin. What amount 
of agreement and discrepancy may 
be observed between the Acts and the 
Epistles is a much disputed question. 
The most adverse and extreme criti- 
cism is represented by Dr. Baur of 
Tubingen, who finds so much opposi- 
tion between what he holds to be the 
few authentic Pauline Epistles and 
the Acts of the Apostles, that he pro- 
nounces the history to be an interest- 
ed fiction. But his criticism is the 
very caricature of captiousness. We 
have but to imagine it applied to any 
history and letters of acknowledged 



authenticity, and we feel irresistibly 
how arbitrary and unhistorical it is. 
Putting aside this extreme view, it is 
not to be denied that difficulties are 
to be met with in reconciling com- 
pletely the Acts and the received 
Epistles of St. Paul. What the so- 
lutions of such difficulties may be, 
whether there are any direct contra- 
dictions, how far the apparent differ- 
ences may be due to the purpose of 
the respective writers, by what ar- 
rangement all the facts presented to 
us may best be dovetailed together — ■ 
these are the various questions which 
have given so much occupation to the 
critics and expositors of St. Paul, 
and upon some of which it seems to 
be yet impossible to arrive at a deci- 
sive conclusion. 



A.D. 37. The Acts and the Pauline Epistles. 403 

subsequent narrative as a biography of St. Paul, it will gain 
much in interest and clearness, if we first distinctly mark the 
following great epochs of his life : 

I. His First appearance at Jerusalem , as a Persecutor. 
II. His Conversion on the way to Damascus. 
C/ / HI. His Introduction to the Apostles at Jerusalem, and 

retirement for a time to Tarsus. 
«1/V IV. His Labors at Antioch, and visit to Jerusalem in a.d. 
44. 
V. His First Missionary Journey ', in Asia Minor. 
_/;T VI. His Visit to Jerusalem about the Gentiles. 

yVH. His Second Missionary Journey, and Introduction 
of the Gospel into Europe. 
, VIII. His Third Missionary Journey, and long Stay at 
Ephesus. 
IX. His Seizure at Jerusalem and Imprisonment at Cces- 
area. 
X. His Voyage to Pome, and First Imprisonment. 
XI. His Release, and subsequent labors. 
2£M. His Second Imprisonment, and Martyrdom. 
4 

Saul is first introduced to us in connection with the mar- 
tyrdom of Stephen, and the persecution which ensued thereon. 
When the disciples were scattered by this persecution, Saul 
pursued them with a fury which Luke describes by the same 
image that the poets use of the monster Typhosus, " breathing 
out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the 
Lord ; " 2 or, to use his own words, " Being exceedingly mad 
against them, I persecuted them even to strange cities." 3 
Among these cities was old Damascus, which had recently 
been transferred from Herod Antipas to Aretas, the King of 
Arabia Petraea, whose daughter Herod had put away, in order 
to marry his own niece and sister-in-law, Herodias. War had 
broken out between the two princes about their boundaries ; 
and the Jews, who were very numerous at Damascus, es- 
poused the cause of Aretas, and viewed Herod's defeat as a 
judgment for the death of John. It was therefore natural 
that Aretas should befriend the Jews, so as to give facilities for 
carrying out the jurisdiction which the great Sanhedrim at Je 
rusalem claimed over their countrymen in foreign cities. At 
all events, Saul must have relied on being able to execute the 
commission which he sought and obtained from the high- 

9 Acts ix. 1. 3 Acts xxvi. 11. 



404 Conversion of St. Paul. Chap. XIV. 

priests to the synagogues at Damascus, to bring all the disci- 
ples he could find there, men or women, bound, to Jerusalem. 4 
About the same time that Philip was plodding alone on the 
desert way from Jerusalem to Gaza, the fiery young Phar- 
isee was riding with his retinue in the opposite direction 
through the Syrian desert. 5 The unexpected crisis which 
hung over him invites us to cast back a glance upon his for- 
mer life. 

§ 2. "I verily am a Jew, born in Tarsus, of Cilicia (a citizen 
of no mean city), but brought up in this city (Jerusalem) at 
the feet of Gamaliel," 6 " circumcised the eighth day, of the 
stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the 
Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee:" 7 — such are Paul's de- 
scriptions of himself, to which the traditions of the Fathers 
scarcely add any trustworthy information. 

We see that he belonged to a Jewish family of " the Dis- 
persion," but of the purest Hebrew blood, and preserving the 
record of its descent from the tribe which had already given 
a king to Israel in the person of another Saul, for such was 
the Jewish name that he derived from his parents. 8 He was 
a "freeborn" citizen of Rome, inheriting from his father 
those privileges which he so often claimed in a spirit that 
serves as a pattern of the value, that Christians should set 
upon their political rights. It is a common error to suppose 
that Saul's father enjoyed the Roman citizenship simply as an 
inhabitant of Tarsus. It is true that the capital of the prov- 
ince of Cilicia, placed on the banks of the Cydnus, in tiie nar- 
row fertile plain between the Mediterranean and the snowy 
peaks of Taurus, at the conflux of the commerce between Asia 
Minor and the East, well deserved the epithet applied to it by 
its most distinguished son : it was " no mean city ;" but yet it 
neither ranked as a municipium nor a colonia ; and its posi- 
tion as a " free city " {libera cimtas) did not entitle its sons 
to the Roman franchise. It is conjectured, therefore, that 

4 Actsix. 1, 2. The understanding 1 8 The story mentioned by Jerome, 
between the Jews of Damascus and | that St. Paul's parents lived at Gis- 
the Arabian governor is seen in the i chala in Galilee, and that, having 



measures which they afterward con- 
certed against St. Paul, 2 Cor. xi. 
32. 

5 We may take it for granted, with 
the artists, that the journey was per- 
formed on horseback, though the sa- 
cred narrative is silent on the point. 

6 Actsxxii.3, xxi. 30. 



been born there, the infant Saul em- 
igrated with his parents to Tarsus 
upon the taking of that city by the 
Romans, is inconsistent with the fact 
that Gischala was not taken until a 
much later time, and with the Apos- 
tie's own statement that he was born 
at Tarsus (Acts xxii. 3). 



7 Philipp.iii. 5.„ His father also was a Pharisee, Acts xxiii G. 



A.D. 37, 



Birthplace and Parentage. 



£05 



this privilege had been conferred upon Saul's father as the re- 
ward of services rendered during the civil wars ; and we have 
many other examples of the enjoyment of the franchise by 
Jews. 9 

§ 3. The traveler observes at the present day the plain of 
Tarsus dotted over with the black tents of goat's-hair, under 
which the people live while gathering in their harvest. Ci- 
licia was famed of old for the manufacture of this goat's-hair 
cloth, which was called Ciliciwn • and Saul was brought up 
to the occupation of a tent-maker. 10 The excellent custom of 
the Jews to teach every youth some trade, whether he had to 
earn his living by it or not, afterward enabled the Apostle — 
when such independence was of vital consequence to his min- 
isterial success — to labor with his own hands, and so to make 
the Gospel without charge to the disciples. 11 It by no means 
follows that the family were in a necessitous condition ; and 
the contrary may be inferred from the liberal education 
which St. Paul received. To that acquisition of the Greek 
language, which the situation and commercial activity of Tar- 
sus made almost a matter of course, he added such an ac- 
quaintance with Hellenic literature, as. not only to quote free- 
ly from Greek poets, 12 but to prove himself familiar with the 
very spirit of Hellenism. 13 These accomplishments, together 
with the influence which the general atmosphere of a high- 
ly-cultivated Greek community must have had upon his sus- 
ceptible nature, formed in no small degree his peculiar 
qualifications for the special part to which he was called 
in the diffusion of Christianity, as the "Apostle of the Gen- 
tiles." 

§ 4. But, though Hellenistic, his family were not Hellenizing. 
A "Hebrew of the Hebrews," he was early sent to Jerusalem, 
to be " brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught accord- 
ing to the most perfect manner of the law of the fathers." 14 
Here he added to that perfect familiarity with the Septuagint, 



"The names i>f Junta and Lucius, 
which occur among those of his kin- 
dred (Rom. xvi.), seem to furnish ev- 
idence of his Roman connections ; 
and his own name of Paulas, which 
is commonly assumed to have been 
adopted upon the conversion of Ser- 
gius Paulus, may have been derived 
much earlier from his Roman citizen- 
ship. The Greek names which occur 
in the same list mark the Greek con- 
nections of the Hellenistic Jew. (Sec 



Convbeare and Howson, vol. i. ch. 
ii.) ' 

10 cKrivoTrowQ, Acts xviii. 3. 

11 Acts xx. 34 ; 1 Cor. iv. 12 ; 2 
Cor. xi. 9, xii. 13,14; 1 Thess. ii. 9 ; 
2 Thess. iii. 8. 

1: Acts xviii. 28; Tit. i. 2. 

13 Especially in the opening of the 
Epistle to the Romans, and in many 
passages of those to the Corinthians. 

14 Acts xxii. 3, where the word 
avaTiBpaixfikvoQ implies that he re- 



406 



Conversion of St. Paul. 



Chap. XIV. 



which as an Hellenist he had been taught from his childhood, 
a complete knowledge of Hebrew and of the Hebrew Script- 
ures, 15 as well as the whole mass of the traditional lore of the 
Pharisaic school. The profound learning which lies at the 
basis of all the reasonings of his Epistles confirms his own ac- 
count of the rapid progress which he made in the Jews' re- 
ligion above many of his contemporaries. 10 But Saul was no 
mere intellectual student. The young Pharisee had already 
acquired among " his own people " a reputation for sanctity 
of life and strict observance of all the traditions of the sect, 
which he more than maintained at Jerusalem. He could 
afterward confidently appeal to the knowledge of all the Jews, 
that " after the most straitest sect of their religion he lived a 
Pharisee ;" 17 nay, he could boast with a good conscience, that 
he was blameless as touching the righteuosness which is in 
the law" 18 Paul was no converted profligate ; and thus 
far he is an example of that course of divine grace which 
visits with new light and life the cultivated intellect and the 
well-regulated character. But those qualifying words point to 
the greater virtues which he did not possess ; and his frequent 
ironical allusions to " glorying," " boasting," and " pleasing 
men," confess the stigma which Christ had stamped upon the 
Pharisees, who " received honor one of another," and " loved 
the praise of men more than the praise of God." His own 
sorrowful confession marks his highest reputation among the 
Jews as a state of " ignorance and unbelief " — ignorance of 
the true meaning of the Scriptures in which he was so pro- 
ficient, and unbelief in their spiritual sense. 19 But his dark- 
ness was not that of the cold night of scepticism. The 
same enthusiastic temperament which afterward bore him 
on through the many " perils " 20 of his apostolic course, 
broke out in youth as a fierce zeal for the traditions of the 
fathers. 21 

When Paul afterward came forward as the great opponent 
of the false interpretation of the law, it was at least impossi- 
ble to charge him with ignorance or indifference upon the 



ceived his education chiefly at Jeru- 
salem. The phrase "at the feet of 
Gamaliel " is not merely a figure, for 
the Rabbis occupied an elevated seat, 
or dais, among their pupils. Mr. 
Lewin, who supposes Saul to have 
gone to Jerusalem about the age of 
11 (about a.d. 19), suggests that the 
removal of the family may have been 
the result of the troubles that arose in 



Cilicia about the affair of Piso and 
the death of Germanicus. 

15 Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 2. 

16 Gal. i. 14. 

17 Acts xxvi. 4, 5 ; following the 
reading Iv r<£> Wvu fiov Iv re 'lfpoao- 
Xvfioig. a8 Phil. iii. 5. 

19 1 Tim. i. 13. 20 2 Cor. xi. 26. 

21 Gal. i. 14; Acts xxii. 3; Phil. 
iii. 6, etc. 



A.D. 37. 



Saul the Persecutor. 



407 



subject. He had no doubt completed his course of study at 
the feet of Gamaliel, and perhaps returned to Jerusalem after 
an absence of some time at Tarsus, when the first preaching 
of the Apostles, and the disputations of the deacons present- 
ed a special object of attack. 22 And here it is most interest- 
ing to contrast the solitary appearance of Gamaliel in the 
Acts with the course chosen by St. Paul; the master's 
counsels of toleration with the persecuting zeal so soon dis- 
played by the pupil. There is room for the supposition that 
the advice which Gamaliel gave, as an opponent of the Sad- 
ducees, concerning the treatment of believers in a resurrec- 
tion, may have been greatly modified when he found the 
Christians arguing against the Pharisaic traditions. But, be 
this as it may, the teaching of the Pharisaic doctor, which 
regarded the students of the law as the " holy people," and 
declared that "this people who knoweth not the law are 
cursed," 23 did but produce its natural fruit in the ardent spirit 
of Saul, with his youthful impatience of all compromise. 
How far his zeal Avas inflamed by that bitterest element, which 
is supplied by conscious doubts and struggles, is a question 
as difficult as it is interesting. From Nicodemus to Gamaliel, 
we may trace among the Pharisees the working of that con- 
viction of the truth of Christ's Messiahship, which was the 
appropriate fruit of their learning and their doctrines. Je- 
sus constantly deals with them as being willfully blind ; and 
St. Paul's celebrated confession of his own ignorance and un- 
belief is at least capable of the like interpretation. The very 
word unbelief, in such a connection, implies the consideration 
of the great question which Gamaliel had propounded in the 
Sanhedrim, and which could hardly have escaped discussion 
in his school. We can not doubt, therefore, that it was as 
the result of doubtful struggles, if not of suppressed convic- 
tion, that Saul came to " think verily with himself that he 
ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Naz- 
areth." 24 Such a state of mind will account for the fury 
which he shared with the other Hellenists who were refuted 
by Stephen ; and the deep sense of it breathes through his 



33 Whether Paul was at Jerusalem 
at the time of our Saviour's ministry 
and crucifixion is a question best left 
in the silence of Scripture concerning 
it; but we can hardly conceive that 
he would never have alluded to such 
experience. His question, "Have 
not I seen Jesus Christ our Lord?'' 



manifestly refers to some supernatural 
vision of Christ, probably his " aj - 
pearance in the way " to Damascus. 
(Comp. 1 Cor. ix. 1 and xv. 8 witl< 
Acts ix. 3, 17, xviii. 9, xxii. 14, 18, 
xxiii. 11.) 

23 John vii. 49. 

t4 Acts xxvi, 9. 



408 



Conversion of St. Paul. 



Chap. XIV. 



remorseful allusions to that darkest clay of his whole career. 26 
Let those who maintain that zeal is a virtue, even in a bad 
cause, ponder Paul's confession that he was the chief of sin- 
ners because he was " a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and 
injurious," and therefore the most signal example of God's 
long-suffering ; 28 that he was " the least of the apostles, and 
not worthy to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the 
Church of God:"'" 

§ 5. In the martyrdom of Stephen we must not think of 
Saul as a mere by-stander. The mention of " them of Cilicia" 
seems to assign him a place among the disputants against 
Stephen ; 28 but his part in the murder, only second to that of 
the witnesses whose clothes he took charge of, is marked by 
the emphatic statement " Saul was consenting to his death." 29 
The angelic glory that shone from Stephen's face, and the di- 
vine truth of his words, failing to subdue the spirit of relig- 
ious hatred now burning in Saul's breast, must have embit- 
tered and aggravated its rage. He became not simply the 
chief instrument, but the prime mover, in the great persecu- 
tion for which that deed gave the signal ; and it was by his 
activity that the Christians were forced to flee from Jerusa- 
lem. " As for Saul, he made havoc of the Church, entering 
into every house, and haling men and women, committed 
them to prison." 30 His own confession amplifies the histori- 
an's account, and tells us of the eager malice with which, 
probably as a member of the Sanhedrim, he voted for their 
death, or helped to inflict minor punishments, such as scourg- 
ing in the synagogue, and tried, greatest triumph of all to 
the persecutor's spite, to compel them to blaspheme the name 
of Christ. 31 The Pharisees and Sadducees now evidently 
sank their difference in common hatred against the Chris- 
tians ; and the absence of a Roman procurator enabled them 
to usurp the power of life and death. Saul might almost 
have been for the time the governor of Jerusalem. The chief 
priests might have been content with the apparent expulsion 
of the Christians from Jerusalem ; but not so Saul, — " Being 
exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto 
foreign cities." 32 It was by his own seeking that he obtained 



25 Acts xxii. 20. 2C 1 Tim. i. 13-1G. 
27 1 Cor. xv. 0. 29 Acts vi. 9. 

29 Acts vii. 58, viii. 1. 

30 Acts viii. 3. 

31 Acts xxii. 19, xxvi. 10, 11. The 
English version implies that even 
thus early there were found rene- 



gades who hlasphemed the name of 
Christ, as indeed Peter had done al- 
read} r . But the proper force of the 
Greek imperfect, rjvayKalov, signifies 
that the efforts of the persecutors 
failed. 

32 Acts xxvi. 11. 



A.D. 37. Circumstances of the Conversion. 409 

the letters of the high-priest to the synagogues of Damas- 
cus, to enable him to seize and bring bound to Jerusalem any 
" of the way," whether men or women. 33 

§ 6. But the Divine Ruler had prescribed a very different 
issue, and Saul was arrested on his journey by a miracle which 
converted the persecutor of his Jewish brethren into the 
Apostle of the Gentiles. This event is related in detail three 
times in the Acts, first by the historian in his own person, 
then in the two addresses made by St. Paul at Jerusalem and 
before Agrippa. 34 These three narratives are not repetitions 
of one another : there are differences between them which 
some critics choose to consider irreconcilable. Considering 
that the same author is responsible for all the accounts, it 
seems pretty clear that the author himself could not have 
been conscious of any contradictions in the narratives. He 
can scarcely have had any motive for placing side by side in- 
consistent reports of St. Paul's conversion ; and that he should 
have admitted inconsistencies on such a matter through mere 
carelessness, is hardly credible. Strange that those who are 
so proud of detecting " obvious discrepancies," can not see 
that they are too obvious to have escaped the notice of the 
writer, whose leaving them as they stand is a decisive proof 
of honesty ! In the one place he gives in his own language a 
simple account of the most essential features of the transac- 
tion, viewed merely as an historical event : — the sudden light 
from heaven ; the voice of Jesus speaking with authority to 
his persecutor ; Saul struck to the ground, blinded, overcome ; 
the three days' suspense ; the coming of Ananias as a mes- 
senger of the Lord ; and Saul's baptism. 35 In the other two 
passages, he reports speeches which St. Paul made before 
different auditors, bringing forward in each case those points 
which were best fitted to convince the hearers ; points relat- 
ing chiefly to his own consciousness, but in no one respect in- 
consistent with those recorded in the simpler narrative. It 
is to be especially observed that St. Luke, in telling the plain 
story of Paul's conversion, refers to what the by-standers wit- 
nessed as a sort of supplement; while St. Paul himself, in 
using the event as an evidence of his divine mission, lays 
more stress on their experience, and weaves it step by step 
into his account. As a critical example of unity in diversity, 



83 Acts ix. 2. Respecting this ap- 
pellation for the Christians, comp. Acts 
xix. 9, 23. 4 Acts ix., xxii., xxvi. 

u& It is now proved by all the best [Acts xxvi. 14. 

s 



MSS. that the phrase in Acts ix. 5, 
"It is hard for thee to kick against, 
the pricks," is an interpolation from 



410 . Conversion of St. Paul. Chap. XIV, 

and for its importance as one of the chief evidences of the 
truth of Christianity, each step of the narrative must be com- 
pared in the three accounts. 

(i.) Saul and his company had nearly completed the journey sc 
across the vast level east of the Lake of Tiberias — " the Desert 
of Damascus " — bounded only by the chain of Lebanon faintly 
seen on the far horizon : — " the earth in its length and breadth, 
and all the deep universe of sky, is steeped in light and heat ;" 
and the towers of the most ancient city in the world are now 
in full sight, when the brightness of the noonday sun 37 is sud- 
denly swallowed up in a greater light from heaven, which 
seems to envelop the little band. The fancy that this might 
have been a subjective vision to the internal sense of Saul 
alone is precluded by his own statement in the third of the 
accounts — " shining round about me, and them that journeyed 
with me." 38 The light then was a real effulgence visible to 
all, and all were stricken to the earth by its sudden overpow- 
ering splendor. 39 But Saul, though alone struck blind by the 
light, alone beheld the vision of the Son of God amid the 
light, as he appeared to the Three Children in the fiery fur- 
nace, and to Stephen in the article of death, and afterward to 
John in Patmos — visible only to his spiritual sense. This 
view, though not undisputed, is amply justified, first by the 
contrast in the narrative itself — for the attendants, who re- 
tained their natural vision, saio no man — and next by the ex- 
press declarations of Ananias — "The Lord Jesus, who appeared 
unto thee in the way"™ — " The God of our fathers hath chos- 
en thee, that thou shoiddest . . . see that <Tust One" 41 — and 
by those by Paul himself — " Have not I seen <Tesus Christ our 
Lord?"** — "Last of all he was seen of me also, as of one 
born out of due time." 43 The last passage seems decisive, 
concluding as it does the list of the visible appearances of 



30 The traditional scene of St. Paul's j men which journeyed with him stood 
conversion is at Kaukaba (the place \ speechless " — where there is evidently 
of the sta?-), six miles S.W. of Da- \ no emphasis on the attitude — it should 
mascus, on the road from Jerusa- | be observed that these words are not 
lem. j parallel to the others in the order of 

37 The time of the day is mentioned | the narrative, but come after the con- 
in both of Paul's speeches, but not in j versation, during which, while Paul 
Acts ix. j was still prostrate in trance upon the 

" s Acts xxvi. 13 : and in Acts xxii. j earth, the rest would naturally havo 
9 it is said that they "saw indeed time to recover their feet, and would 



the light. 

39 Acts xxvi. 14. Besides the triv- 
ial nature of the objection found- 
ed on the words in Acts ix. 7, "The 



as naturally "stand speechless" 
watching for their leader's recovery. 

40 Acts ix. 17. 4l Acts xxii. 14. 

42 1 Cor. ix 1. . 43 1 Cor. xv. 8. 



j±.D. 37. Circumstances of the Conversion. 411 

Christ to his Apostles after his resurrection, by this to the 
last-chosen of their number. 

(ii.) The light was attended by the sound so familiar to 
Jewish belief as the " Bath-Col," or voice from heaven, audi- 
ble to the attendants probably much in the same way as to the 
Jews on the occasion when some said it thundered. 44 But 
what they heard as a mere sound was to Saul the distinct 
voice of Him who appeared to him in the light, a remonstrance 
which at once revealed Himself and claimed the obedience of one 
well known to Kim — " Saul! Saul! whypersecutest thou me?" 
The fuller narrative in St. Paul's defense before Agrippa adds 
that striking figure, which is not only a warning of the folly 
of resistance, but implies that conscious effort against convic- 
tion of which we have before spoken — "It is hard for thee 
to kick against the goad." 45 Amid the vague astonishment of 
the answer, we trace the acknowledgment of the appeal from 
heaven, " Who art thou, Lord ?" — while the reply fully reveals 
him whom Saul was henceforth to serve with as much zeal as 
that with which he now opposed him : " I am Jesus of Naza- 
reth, whom thou per 'secutest. r ,4G To the trembling and aston- 
ishment caused by his being " apprehended " — to use his own 
figure — in the very act described by his earthly master as 
" fighting against God," was at once added that entire change 
of heart and spirit and purpose toward Christ, which has 
caused the transaction to be called ever since, " the Conversion 
of St. Paul." He had much yet to learn ; but this great change 
was marked, and the key-note of his future life was struck 
by the humble inquiry, " Lord ! what wilt thou have me to 
do ?" The answer was left to be given by the appointed hu- 



44 The trivial suggestion of a dis- 
crepancy between Acts ix. 7 and xxii. 
1), which could hardly have been en- 
tertained for a moment by any who 
reflected on the double meaning of 
the Greek 0wi/// for sounds both ar- 
ticulate and inarticulate, is decisively 
answered by the explanatory words 
in the latter passage, ' ' they heard not 
the voice of him that spake to me." 
(Comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 7-11, where the 
argument is obscured by the double 
rendering of §uvr\ by sound and voice, 
the latter word often bearing in En- 
glish the same double sense.) 

45 Acts xxvi. 14. The image, which 
is taken from a restive ox kicking 
against the driver's goad, and thereby 
only punishing himself the more, was 



doubtless proverbial. At least we 
find it nsed 500 years before by 
^Eschylus (Prom. Des. 322) : 

oi'Kovv 6/j.ofye XP^I^^ ^ SidacrKciXui 
?rpot fvfci/Tpa k w \ o v fc'KTevei?. 

The vaguer sense suggested to the 
English reader by the word pricks is 
curiously embodied in a medal struck 
on the defeat of the Spanish Armada, 
showing the pope, cardinals, and 
Catholic powers seated round a pit, 
full of stakes, on the sharp points of 
which their bare feet are playing, with 
the legend, " Durum est contra stim- 
ulos calcitrarey 

46 The epithet Na^wpoioc occurs 
only in Paul's defense to the Jeivsj 
Acts xxii. 8. 



412 Conversion of St. Paid. Chap. XIV. 

man agency, after an interval of preparation ; and the super- 
natural scene was closed by the command to Saul to rise up, 47 
and go into Damascus to wait for his commission. And here 
we have the most interesting example of that unity in diversi- 
ty which marks the three accounts. The narrative of St. Luke 
of course mentions the return to Damascus, and so forth, in 
the historic order ; and in St. Paul's defense to the Jews, im~ 
portance is naturally assigned to the miraculous and prophetic 
ministry of Ananias, while the commission to the Gentiles — 
so sure to rouse their indignation— was as naturally deferred 
to the last. 48 But, in addressing Agrippa, he passes over the 
transactions at Damascus, in which the king would take no 
interest, to come at once to the essential matter of his com- 
mission, by which he hoped to persuade him to become a 
Christian. In so doing he ascribes to Jesus, not only the 
message afterward brought to him by Ananias, but the revela- 
tion made to him at a later period in the Temple, in words 
which were those of Christ himself. With perfect truthful- 
ness to the spirit of the transaction, he condenses into one 
point of view revelations which really formed but one. 
What Saul actually heard from Jesus, on the way as he jour- 
neyed, was afterward interpreted into that definite form in 
which he repeated it to Agrippa. 

' In all that passed, from the moment when all fell to the 
earth at the outburst of the light from heaven till Saul again 
rose to his feet, his companions had no other part than that of 
silent wonder. " They stood speechless, hearing a voice, but 
seeing no man." 49 As they could not distinguish the articu j 
late voice that conversed with Paul, so neither did they hear 
articulate words jn'oceeding from his lips. It seems therefore 
tli at he heard and spoke by means of an inward spiritual 
sense. 00 



47 The words, " and stand upon thy 
feet," which occur only in Acts xxvi. 
1G, indicate that Saul remained pros- 
trate during the whole conversation. 

48 Acts xxii. 49 Acts ix. 7. 



companions were familiar, is unques- 
tionably implied in the narrative. 
It is also implied that they were 
specially significant to Saul, and not 
to those with him. We gather, thcre- 



50 The instantaneous vision of Jesus fore, that the rewere real outward 
in the flash of light that blinded him i phenomena, through which Saul was 
was followed by that apprehension i made inwardly sensible of a Presence 
of His presence which would go with ' revealed to him alone. 



a real conversation. How it was that 
Saul "saw" and "heard" we are 
quite unable to determine. That the 
light and the sound, or voice, were 
both different from any ordinary phe- 
nomena with which Saul and his 



Externally there was a flash of 
light. Spiritually, "the light of the 
gospel of the glory of the Christ, who 
is the image of God," shone upon 
Saul, and convicted the darkness of 
the heart which had shut out Lovo 



A.D. 37. 



Mission of Ananias to Saul. 



413 



(iii.) Saul rose from the ground, and opened his eyes aftei 
his trance, only to find that " he could not see for the glory 
of that light." 51 The guidance by which his comrades led 
him into Damascus was the type of his new spiritual state, 
" taken by the hand " by his Lord. In the street called 
Straight, he became the guest of Judas, j^erhaps one of the 
chief of the disciples whom he came to persecute. Of the 
communion with his new-found Master during his three days 
of darkness and fasting, we have only the simple record, " Be- 
hold he prayeth !" — which shows him in the fit attitude for 
receiving the mission of Ananias, a vision of whose coming 
had consoled his waiting. 52 The messenger sent to him was a 
convert of his own class, " a devout man according to the 
law," and one so familiar with all the evil that Paul had done, as 
to be at first incredulous of his conversion. He salutes Saul 



and knew not the glory of the Cross. 
Externally Saul fell to the ground. 
Spiritually he was prostrated by shame, 
when he knew whom he had been per- 
secuting. Externally sounds issued 
out of heaven. Spiritually the Cru- 
cified said to Saul, with tender re- 
monstrance, "I am Jesus, why per- 
secutest thou me ?" Whether audibly 
to his companions, or audibly to the 
Lord Jesus only, Saul confessed him- 
self in the spirit the servant of Him 
whose name he had hated. He gave 
himself up, without being able to see 
his way, to the disposal of Him whom 
he now knew to have vindicated His 
claim over him by the very sacrifice 
which formerly he had despised. The 
Pharisee was converted, once for all, 
into a disciple of Jesus the Crucified. 
The only mention in the Epistles 
of St. Paul of the outward phenome- 
na attending his conversion is that in 
1 Cor. xv. 8, "Last of all he was 
seen of me also." But there is one 
important passage in which he speaks 
distinctly of his conversion itself. Dr. 
Baur, with his readiness to find out 
discrepancies, insists that this passage 
represents quite a different process 
from that recorded in the Acts. It 
is manifestly not a repetition of what 
we have been reading and consider- 
ing, but it is in the most perfect har- 
mony with it. In the Epistle to the 



Galatians (i. 15, 1G) St. Paul has these 
words: "When it pleased God, who 
separated me from my mother's womb, 
and called me by his grace, to reveal 
his Son in vie, that I might preach him 
among the heathen . . . (cnroKaXvipai 
tov vwv airov iv i\ioi)." What words 
could express more exactly than these 
the spiritual experience which occur- 
red to Saul on the way to Damascus ? 
The manifestation of Jesus as the 
Son of God is clearly the main point 
in the narrative. This manifesta- 
tion was brought about through a re- 
moval of the veils of prejudice and ig- 
norance which blinded the eyes of 
Saul to a Crucified Deliverer, con- 
quering through sacrifice. And, what- 
ever part the senses may have played 
in the transaction, the essence of it 
in any case must have been Saul's in- 
ward vision of a spiritual Lord close 
to his spirit, from whom he could not 
escape, whose every command he was 
henceforth to obey in the spirit. All 
this is summed np in the brief sen- 
tence in which Paul relates his con- 
version to the Galatians :." When it 
pleased God, who separated me from 
my mother's womb, and called me by 
his grace, to reveal Ms Son in me, 
that I might preach him among the 
heathen" (Gal. i. 15, 16). ■ 

51 Acts ix. 8, xxii. 11. 

53 Actsix. 11, 12. 



414 Conversion of St. Paul. Chap. XIV. 

as a brother, and, in the name of that same Lord Jesus whcr 
had appeared to him by the way, bids him receive his sight. 
The scales, which seemed at once to fall from his eyes, were 
those which had blinded his spiritual even more than his nat- 
ural vision ; 63 and his own narrative adds the full account oi 
the revelation that burst upon him: — "The same hour I 
looked up upon him, and he said, The Lord God of our fathers 
hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest knoAV his will, and see 
the Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. 
For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast 
seen and heard." r ' 4 Every word in this address strikes some 
chord which we hear sounded again and again in St. Paul's 
Epistles. The new convert is not — as is commonly said — 
converted from Judaism to Christianity : the God of the Jew- 
ish fathers chooses him. He is chosen to know God's will. 
That will is manifested in the Righteous One. Him Saul sees 
and hears, in order that he may be a witness of him to all men. 
The eternal will of the God of Abraham ; that will revealed 
in a Righteous Son of God ; the testimony concerning him, a 
Gospel to mankind : — these are the essentially Pauline princi- 
ples which are declared in all the teaching of the Apostle, and 
illustrated in all his actions. The mission of Ananias was 
completed by the baptism of Saul ; and not till he had washed 
away his sins, calling on the name of the Lord, did he break 
his three days' fast, and was strengthened. 55 

§■7. That the bigoted persecutor, at the climax of honor 
with his own nation, and in the full career of success, should 
have suddenly cast in his lot with the Christians, and entered 
on the new course of self-sacrificing labor and suffering which 
made up the rest of his life, has often been esteemed of itself 
a complete evidence of the truth of Christianity. The argu- 
ment, which is fully set forth in Lord Lyttelton's Letter on 
the Conversion of St. Paid, is thus summed up by Paley : — 
" Here then we have a man of liberal attainments, and in other 
points of sound judgment, who addicted his life to the service 
of the Gospel. We see him, in the prosecution of his pur- 
pose, traveling from country to country, enduring every ex- 
tremity of danger, assaulted by the populace, punished by the 
magistrates, scourged, beat, stoned, left for dead ; expecting, 
wherever he came, a renewal of the same treatment and the 
same dangers ; yet, when driven from one city, preaching in 

53 Acts ix. 19 : comp. John ix. 39- j rative in the defense to the Jews ends 
41. M Acts xxii. 13-15. at this point, and proceeds to his visit 

65 Acts ix. 18, xxii. 1G. The nar- I to Jerusalem. 



A.D. 37. Designation to the Apostleshtp. 415 

the next ; spending his whole time in the employment, sacri- 
ficing to it his pleasures, his ease, his safety ; persisting in thia 
course to old age, unaltered by the experience of perverseness, 
ingratitude, prejudice, desertion ; unsubdued by anxiety, want, 
labor, persecutions ; unwearied by long confinement, undis- 
mayed by the prospect of death. Such was Paul. We have 
his letters in our hands ; we have also a history purporting to 
be written by one of his fellow-travelers, and appearing, by a 
comparison with these letters, certainly to have been written 
by some person well acquainted with the transactions of his 
life. From the letters, as well as from the history, we gather 
not only the account which we have stated of him, but that he 
was one out of many who acted and suffered in the same man- 
ner ; and that of those who did so, several had been the com- 
panions of Christ's ministry, the ocular witnesses, or pretend- 
ing to be such, of his miracles and of his resurrection. We 
moreover find this same person referring in his letters to his 
supernatural conversion, the particulars and accompanying cir- 
cumstances of which are related in the history ; and which ac- 
companying circumstances, if all or any of them be true, ren- 
der it impossible to have been a delusion. We also find him 
positively, and in appropriate terms, asserting that he himself 
worked miracles, strictly and properly so called, in support of 
the mission which he executed ; the history, meanwhile, record- 
ing various passages of his ministry which come up to the ex- 
tent of his assertion. The question is, whether falsehood was 
ever attested by evidence like this. Falsehoods, we know, 
have found their way into reports, into tradition, into books ; 
but is an example to be met with of a man voluntarily under- 
taking a life of want and pain, of incessant fatigue, of contin- 
ual peril ; submitting to the loss of his home and country, to 
stripes and stoning, to tedious imprisonment, and the constant 
expectation of a violent death, for the sake of carrying about 
a story of what was false, and what, if false, he must have 
known to be so ?" 

§ 8. The divine message conveyed by Ananias to the new 
convert clearly involved a designation to the Apostleship, as 
the sight of Jesus by the way and the words addressed to 
Saul proved his choice to the office and supplied its chief ex- 
ternal qualification. The public exercise of his office began 
immediately after his baptism. Received into full fellowship 
with the Christians of Damascus, he preached Christ in the 
synagogues, that he is the Son of God ; and the more they 
wondered at .the great persecutor's conversion, as contrasted 
with the fell purpose which brought him to the city, the more 



416 Conversion of St. Paul. Chap. XIV. 

he increased in strength, " and confounded the Jews which 
dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ." 56 The 
narrative of St. Luke does not stay to relate how the news 
was received at Jerusalem; but the disappointed rage of 
Saul's former friends is proved in his subsequent history. 
From himself too we learn that he made the choice deliberate- 
ly, not to go first to Jerusalem and seek confirmation or ad- 
vice from those who were Apostles before him; but, instead 
of thus " conferring with flesh and blood," he acted on the 
conviction that " it had pleased God, who separated him from 
his mother's womb, and called him by his grace, to reveal his 
Son in him, that he might preach him among the heathen." 57 
Of the time thus spent, before Saul was driven from Da- 
mascus, 58 we learn further particulars from himself. 59 He de- 
fines the " many days " of Luke as three years ; which^may 
mean either three full years or one year with parts of two 
others. Near the beginning (as it would seem) of this peri- 
od, he retired into Arabia ; we are not told to what district, 
or for what purpose — perhaps for seclusion, meditation and 
prayer, in opposition to " conferring with flesh and blood " — 
and then he returned to Damascus. Here a conspiracy was 
formed against him by the Jews, who lay in wait to kill him, 
while the ethnarch under Aretas, the Arabian king, kept 
watch with the garrison to prevent his escape. But the 
Eastern fashion of building houses upon walls enabled 
Paul to escape by the same device used by Rahab at Jericho. 60 
Being let down through a window by the wall in a basket, 
he took his course to Jerusalem. 131 The motive of this visit. 



56 Acts ix. 19-22. 

67 Gal. i. 1 5, 1 6. 58 Acts ix. 23. 

59 Gal. i. 17, 18. 60 Josh. ii. 15. 

01 Acts ix. 23-25 , 2 Cor. xi. 32, 33. 
Certain localities in Damascus are 
shown as the sites of those Scriptural 
events which especially interest us in 
its history. A ' ' long wide thorough- 
fare " — leading direct from one of the 



trees," and used as the Christian buri- 
al-ground ; but this spot is on the 
eastern side of the city, whereas St. 
Paul must have approached from the 
south or west. Again it appears to 
be certain that "four distinct spots 
have been pointed out at different 
times" (Stanley, p. 412) as the place 
where the "great light suddenly 



gates to the castle or palace of the j shined from heaven " (Acts ix. 3) ; 
Pasha — is " called by the guides j so that little confidence can be placed 
4 Straight'" (Acts ix. 11); but the in any of them. The point of the 
natives know it among themselves as walls at which St. Paul was let down 
" the Street of Bazaars " (Stanley, p. by a basket (Acts ix. 25 ; 2 Cor. xi. 
412). The house of Judas is shown, j 33) is also shown ; and, as this local- 



but it is not in the street " Straight" I ity is free from objection, it may be 
(Pococke, ii. 119). That of Ananias j accepted, if we think that the tradi- 
is also pointed out. The scene of the tion, which has been so faithless or 
conversion is confidently said to be i so uncertain in other cases, has any 
" an open green spot, surrounded by ! value here 



A.D. 39. 



Vision in the Temple. 



417 



as he himself tells us, was to form Peter's acquaintance, or 
" to enquire of Peter, 62 whom in the time of persecution he 
had doubtless learned to regard as the chief of the Apostles t 
He probably thought that the time was come for that con- 
cert with the former Apostles, which he had purposely ab- 
stained from seeking as a preliminary qualification for his 
own ministry. And even now he takes pains to have it un- 
derstood that he accepted no formal confirmation of his call 
from the " apostolic college." He mentions the journey as 
an illustration of his argument that he did not receive the 
Gospel which he preached (that is, the commission to preach 
it) from man ; 63 and adds the solemn asseveration — " before 
God, I lie not " — to the statement, " Other of the Apostles 
saw I none save James the Lord's brother." C4 The great 
body of the disciples viewed the re-appearance of their for- 
mer persecutor with distrust, and refused to believe that he 
was a disciple, till Barnabas — who, as a Cypriot, seems to 
have had relations with the Hellenist Jews of Tarsus G5 — 
brought Saul to the Apostles, and told them how he had seen 
the Lord in the way, and how boldly he had preached Christ at 
Damascus. With, equal boldness Saul now began to dispute 
with the Hellenists ; and he was only saved from Stephen's 
fate through being hastily escorted by the brethren to Cresa- 
rea, whence he sailed for Tarsus. 00 

§ 9. He had spent only fifteen days at Jerusalem, as tho 
guest of Peter ; 67 and it becomes a question of deep interest, 
whether this intercourse of theirs took place before or after 
the time when Peter had opened the kingdom of heaven to 
the Gentiles by the conversion of Cornelius; and how far 
they aided in opening one another's eyes to the mystery of the 
conversion of the whole world. 60 For we are so accustomed 
to think of Paul as the Apostle of the Gentiles, as to forget 
that his Jewish prejudices were naturally as strong as those 



62 'HTTopfJGcti Herpov, Gal. i. 18. 

63 Gal. i. 11, 12. 

64 Gal. i. 19, 20. No critic, in deal- 
ing with any book but the Bible, 
would fail to see that the principle of 
intemreting a general statement by a 
specific one removes all shadow of 
discrepancy between this passage and 
that in Acts ix. 27, where it is said 
that Barnabas introduced Saul to the 
Apostles. 

C5 Cyprus is within a few hours' 
sail of Cilicia. 

S2 



66 Acts ix. 26-30. 

67 Gal. i. 18. It is the natural, 
though not necessary, interpretation 
that the 15 days with Peter measure 
his whole stay at Jerusalem. 

6b The emphasis which St. Paul 
lays on his private and cautious com- 
munication to the principal Apostles 
of the Gospel which he had preached 
to the Gentiles, on his subsequent 
visit to Jerusalem 14 years later, 
seems opposed to such a ih:ory (GaL 
ii. 2). 



418 Conversion of St. Paul. Chap. XIV. 

of Peter. Saul had indeed already been designated, in the 
revelation to Ananias, as " a chosen vessel unto God, to bear 
his name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children oi 
Israel ;" 69 but we do not know that Ananias had given him 
the commission more distinctly than in the general phrase 
"to all men," 70 and Saul had as yet preached only in the 
Jewish synagogues at Damascus. The visit to Jerusalem 
was the season appointed for him to receive his full commis 
sion to the Gentiles, the particulars of which he relates in 
his defense before the Jews. 71 As he was praying in the 
Temple, he fell into a trance, and for the second time beheld a 
vision of the Lord, who bade him to make haste and depart 
from Jerusalem, " for they will not receive thy testimony con- 
cerning me." His argument in reply, from their former 
knowledge of him as a persecutor, was answered by the repe- 
tition of the command, " Depart, for I will send thee far 
hence unto the Gentiles." The revelation is evidently made 
to Saul alone, and that as a novelty and mystery inconsistent 
with the supposition that the Church at Jerusalem had already 
acknowledged the conversion of Cornelius and his Gentile 
friends. It seems to include not only a designation to his 
particular department of apostolic work — so offensive to the 
Jews — but also a distinct recognition of that independence 
of his apostolic calling which might have provoked jealousy 
even among his Christian brethren. And, just as the bare re- 
cital of those words roused Saul's infuriated audience to cry, 
" Away with such a fellow from the earth !" so would the 
consciousness of such a mission probably hurry him away 
out of the reach both of Jews and Judaizing Christians, with- 
out his venturing to communicate it even to Peter. The 
view most consistent, both with the sequence of the narrative 
and with the order in which the Gospel message was devel- 
oped, seems to be that each Apostle was led on independent- 
ly, and Avithout concert, to his separate mission to the Gen- 
tiles ; the one to open to them the door of the kingdom of 
heaven, the other to go abroad and compel them to come in. 
Nor had the Christians of Judrea any but the slightest knowl- 
edge of Saul till, after his flight from Jerusalem, lie " came 
into the regions of Syria and Cilicia ; and they heard only, 
that he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth 
the faith which once he destroyed ; and they glorified God 
in him." 72 



w Acts ix. 15. 71 Acts xxii, 17-21. 

70 Acts xxii. 15. 72 Gal. i. 21-24. 



Chronology of St. Paul's Life. 



419 



§ 10. The narrative in the Acts distinctly places after this 
visit to Jerusalem that season of outward quiet which forms 
a grateful interval in the history of the early Church : — " Then 
had the churches rest throughout all Judaaa, and Galilee, and 
Samaria, and were ediiied, and, walking in the fear of the 
Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied." 73 
To appreciate this statement fully, we must here endeavor to 
supply that want of a distinct chronology which is so much 
felt in the Acts of the Apostles. The amount of industry and 
learning, recently brought to the discussion by Dr. Howson 
and Mr. Lewin, has reduced the controversy within very nar- 
row limits ; and the comparative table on page 424 will at once 
show the points of difference between these leading authori- 
ties, and also how satisfactory is their general agreement, 
though arrived at by different trains of argument, concerning 
the leading epochs of Paul's life. 

It will be observed that the main points of difference — ex- 
clusive of the date of Paul's birth, and the period after his 
first imprisonment at Rome, which are confessedly very uncer- 
tain — are the following : 

(1.) The First Missionary Journey is placed three years 
earlier, and the Visit to Jerusalem to the Council two years 
earlier by Mr. Lewin than by Dr. Howson. 

(2.) This discrepancy is balanced by the greater extent 
which Mr. Lewin gives to the Second Circuit. 

(3.) The fourth visit to Jerusalem is placed by Mr. Lewin 
at the Feast of Tabernacles, a.d. 53, by Dr. Howson at Pente- 
cost, a.d. 54. 

(4.) The difference respecting the visit of Gal. ii. rests on a 
different computation of the 3 years and 14 years of Gal. i. 
18, and Gal. ii. 1. 

There are but two events in the life of Paul which give us 
sure marks of time. The one is his journey from Antioch to 
Jerusalem with Barnabas, on the occasion of the great famine 
under Claudius, about the time of the death of Herod Agrip- 
pa I, — an event which we can fix with certainty to a.d. 44 ; 
and the visit itself could not be later than a.d. 45. 74 The 



Actsix. 31. 
,4 Acts xi. 12. Hence this visit 
could not be identical with that which 
Paul mentions (Gal. ii. 1) as having 
been made 14 years after his first 
visit, or his conversion. For even if 
the interval be reduced to the mini- 
mum according to the Jewish reck- 



oning, the first visit would fall at 
least as early as a.d. 33, and the con- 
version (on the same mode of reckon- 
ing) at least as early as a. d. 31 . For 
other independent proofs that the two 
visits were different, see Conybeare 
and Howson, Appendix on Chronol- 
ogy of Gal. ii. 



420 



Conversion of St. Paul. 



Chai>. XIV 



other date is that of the judgment of St. Paul by Festus ; 
who can be proved, almost with certainty, to have succeeded 
Felix as procurator of Judaea in a.d. 60 — in the autumn of 
which year, therefore, Paul was sent as a prisoner from Cassa- 
rea to Rome. 75 From the latter date we can safely reckon 
back, through his two years' imprisonment at Csesarea, 76 to 
the Pentecost of a.d. 58, as the date of his last arrival at Je- 
rusalem. 77 

On his way thither, he had sailed from Philippi to Troas aft- 
er the Passover, 78 after residing at Corinth for three months, 
that is, in the winter and early spring of a.d. 51 to 58.™ 
Thence we trace him back through Macedonia to Ephesus ; a 
leisurely journey, for, as he went over those parts, he gave 
them much exhortation. 80 It was therefore before the middle 
of a.d. 5 7 that he was driven by the great tumult from Ephe- 
sus, after he had labored in the city for three years ; 81 and 
this is confirmed by the known date of the Artemisia, the fes- 
tival at which the riot occurred, which was in May. Again 
we meet the difficulty as to the mode of reckoning ; but, as 
Paul had gone over the whole country of Phrygia and Gala- 
tia, strengthening all the disciples, 82 before he came to Ephe- 
sus, we can hardly date the beginning of this his Third Mis- 
sionary Journey later than the autumn of a.d. 54. Mr. Lew- 
in places it at the beginning of the year. 

Here again we have an element of uncertainty in the " some 
time " which he had previously spent at Antioch after the con- 
clusion of his second missionary journey. 83 But the time of 
the year when he reached Antioch is marked approximately 
by the hasty visit which he first paid to Jerusalem at the 
" Feast." 84 It is usually assumed that this Feast, which Paul 
was so anxious to keep at Jerusalem, was the Pentecost, in 
which case the " some days " spent at Antioch after it would 
bring us back to the Pentecost, a.d. 54 ; for the abrupt transi- 
tion in St. Luke's narrative, and the incessant activity of St, 
Paul's labors among the Gentiles, now stimulated by the de- 
sire to make his collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem, 
alike forbid us to suppose that the interval was long. Bui: 



75 Wieseler, Cliron. Syn. pp. G6, 
foil. ; Conybeare and Howson, vol. ii. 
spp. ii. 

76 Acts xxiv. 27. 

77 Acts xxi. 15 : comp. xx. 16. As 
a striking confirmation of this date, 
Mr. Lcwin points out that the Sunday 
on which Paul preached at Troas 
(Acts xx. 7) was the 13th day after 



the Passover, which feast therefore 
ended on a Monday, a circumstance 
which did not occur for many years be- 
fore or after A.D. 58. 

78 Act's xx. 6. 79 Acts xx. 3. 

P0 Actsxx.2. 81 Acts xx. 31 

82 Acts xviii. 23. 

83 Acts xviii. 23. 

94 Acts xviii. 21, 22. 



A.D. 40. Chronology of St. PauVs Life. 421 

Mr. Lewin prefers a still earlier date, and regards " the Feast" 
as the Feast of Tabernacles of a.d. 53 (September 16th), sup- 
posing that the Apostle wintered at Antioch, and commenced 
his Third Circuit at the very beginning of a.d. 54. Thus the 
two computations agree within six months as to the conclu- 
sion of Paul's Second and greatest Missionary Journey^ of 
which the last year and a half was spent at Corinth, 85 bringing 
us back to a.d. 52, and leaving us to account for the wide 
range of travel, with all its important incidents, from Antioch 
through Cilicia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Troas, Philippi, Thessaloni- 
ca, Beroea, and Athens — quite enough to fill up not only the 
other part of a.d. 52, and the whole of a.d. 51, a0 as Dr. How- 
son supposes, but to bring us back to the earlier date of Mr. 
Lewin (a.d. 49). For the date of St. Paul's eighteen months' 
residence at Corinth, during this circuit, we have independent 
evidence in the edict of Claudius banishing the Jews from 
Rome, whereby Aquila and Priscilla were driven to Corinth, 
and in the time of Gallio's proconsulship of Achaia. The 
reader is referred to Mr, Lewin's Fasti Sacri for the argu- 
ment which deduces from these data the result, that Paul ar- 
rived at Corinth about Feb. a.d. 52, and left that city about 
August a.d. 53, just in time to reach Jerusalem by the Feast 
of Tabernacles. 

Before this second journey we have another interval of 
" some days " spent by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, after 
their return from their important visit to Jerusalem to consult 
the Apostles and elders concerning the liberties of the Gen- 
tile converts. 87 The foregoing calculations lead us to place 
the date of this epoch, alike in the Apostle's history and in 
that of the whole Church — the so-called Council of Jerusa- 
lem — either in a.d. 50, or a.d. 48. 

At this point we encounter one of the greatest difficulties. 
Dr. Ho wson finds in the date of a.d. 50 another starting-point, 
from which to reckon back to the epoch of St. Paul's conver- 
sion. For of the five visits which are distinctly mentioned in 
£he Acts m as " having been paid by St. Paul to Jerusalem," 
this, he contends, is the only one that can answer to that 



35 Acts xviii. 11. 
33 Acts xv. 36-xviii. 
37 Acts xv. 35, 36. 
88 Namely, the first after his con- 
version, Acts ix. ; the second, with 



fourth at the conclusion of his second 
missionary journey, Acts xviii. ; and 
the fifth when he was seized by the 
Jews, Acts xxi. For the arguments 
that the third of these was that men- 



Barnabas, after the death of Herod i tioned in Gal. ii., see Coriybeare and 
Agrippa I., Acts xi. xii. ; the thirdl Howson'snote to chap, v., vol. ii., pp. 
at the "Council." Acts xv. ; the ! 244, foil. 



422 Conversion of St. Paul. Chap. XIV. 

mentioned in Gal. it. 1, as having occurred " fourteen years 
after'''' the events recorded in Gal. i. The reckoning may be 
made either from Paul's conversion, or from his ensuing 
(first) visit to Jerusalem ; and, on the other hand, the fourteen 
years, on the Jewish computation, may have been little more 
than twelve. Taking the average between these two doubts, 
we may reckon back the fourteen years from a.d. 50 to a.d. 
36 or 37, and take this as the most probable epoch of St. Paul's 
conversion. 89 It is most interesting to observe how Mr. Lewin 
arrives at almost the same result from a very different point 
of departure. He maintains, for reasons which will be better 
understood at the proper place in the narrative, but the con- 
clusiveness of which is very doubtful, that the visit of Gala- 
tians ii. refers to Paul's arrival at Jerusalem at the close of 
his Second Circuit, which he places at the Feast of Taberna- 
cles, a.d. 53. He contends further that the " 3 years " of Gal. 
i. 18, and the "14 years" of Gal. ii. 1, are to be computed 
more definitely than is commonly supposed ; for that, while 
the phrase used in the former case (/zera er-q rpla) may mean 
the third year current, the different form of expression in the 
latter (Stk deKarEafrapujv hibv) signifies an interval of fourteen 
years complete ; and that this fourteen years must be computed, 
not from Paul's conversion, but from the previous visit men- 
tioned in Galatians i. 18. Upon these data, reckoning back 
14 years complete from the Feast of Tabernacles of a.d. 53, 
we arrive at the Feast of Tabernacles of a.d. 39, for Paul's 
first visit to Jerusalem, to see Peter. Thence reckoning back 
to the third year current, we obtain some date in the interval 
between the Feast of Tabernacles, a.d. 36, and the Feast of 
Tabernacles, a.d. 37, as the epoch of St. Paul's conversion. 



"On the Jewish mode of reckon- 
ing, so constantly referred to in this 
discussion, the following remarks are 
of great importance : — " It must not 
be imagined that the Jews arbitrari- 
ly called the same interval of time 
14, 13, or 12 years ; but the denomi- 
nation of the interval depended on 
the time when it began and ended, 
as follows. If it began on September 
1st, a.d. 38, and ended October 1st, 
A.d. 50, it would be called 14 years, 
though really only 12 years and 1 
month ; because it began before the 
1st of Tisri, and ended after the first 
of Tisri ; and as the Jewish civil year 



began on the 1st of Tisri, the inter- B.) 



val was contained in 1 4 different civil 
years. On the other hand, if it be- 
gan on October 1st, a.d. 38, and end- 
ed September 1st, a.d. 50, it would 
only be called 1 2 years, although really 
only two months less than the former 
interval which was called 14 years. 
Hence, as we do not know the month 
of the flight from Damascus, nor of 
the Council of Jerusalem, we are at 
liberty to suppose that the interval 
between them was only a few weeks 
more than 12 years; and therefore 
to suppose the flight in a.d. 38, and 
the Council in a.d. 50." (Conybcare 
and ITowson, vol. ii., app. ii. note 



A..D. 40. Date of St. PauV s Conversion. 423 

But more than this : it seems manifest that the conversion 
must be placed not long after the martyrdom of Stephen, and 
yet at a sufficient interval to leave time for the intervening 
persecution. Now we have been led by independent reason- 
ing to fix the martyrdom of Stephen either at the Feast of 
Tabernacles, a.d. 36, or at the Passover or Pentecost of a.d. 
37, which would lead us to the summer of a.d. 37 for the con- 
version. Finally we have the allusion to Saul as " a young 
'man " (vtawaf) 90 at the death of Stephen, which must be com- 
pared with his description of himself as " Paul the Elder " at 
the time when he wrote to Philemon from his prison at Rome 
(a.d. 62) 91 Now we happen to have a distinct definition by 
Philo, the contemporary of St. Paul, of the limits of age which 
the Jews denoted by these phrases ; according to which Paul 
might be about 28 in a.d. 37, and about 53 in a.d. 62, so that 
his birth may be placed approximately in a.d. 9. We are aid- 
ed in fixing the lower limit by the fact that Aretas was not in 
possession of Damascus till a.d. 37. 

The conclusion, that Paul's conversion took place about the 
beginning, and his flight from Jerusalem about the middle of 
Caligula's reign of four years (a.d. 37-41), is in perfect agree- 
ment with the occurrence of that interval of rest to all the 
churches which is mentioned as immediately succeeding his 
departure from Jerusalem to Tarsus. This interval of rest 
may be ascribed, not only to the cessation of Saul's persecu- 
tion, but to the relations of Judaea to the empire under Caligu- 
la. It has already been told how that Caesar's insane attempt 
to set up his own statue in the sanctuary drove the Jews 
to the verge of a rebellion, which was only averted by his 
death ; 92 and we can well believe that the agitation of the whole 
people at the impending danger would divert their attention 
from the Christians. Thus the commotions which have shaken 
the world and divided the Church's enemies against themselves, 
have often given her a shelter and a breathing-space, just as 
she seemed about to succumb to persecution. 



00 Acts vii. 58. 

^Philem. 9. UavXog Trpecrfiv- 
tt]q, where "Paul the aged " is apt 
to give an exaggerated idea of age, 
and would rather correspond to ykpojv 



3. Youth (fxeipctKiov) up to 21 years. 

4. Young man (vtaviaicog) 28 " 

5. Man (dvffp) "49 " 

6. Elder (irprtfivTrig) " 56 " 

7. Old man (yspujv) above 56 



The following is Philo's division of I (Philo, de Mund. Opif. 36, quoted by 
the periods of human life, by sevens: i Lewin, Fasti Sacri, a.d. 9, No. 1035). 

1. Child (-Traidiov) up to 7 years. Dr. Howson places St. Paul's birth 

2. Boy (ttcus) " 14 " about a.d. 5 or 6. ° 2 Chap. v. § 6. 



424 



Conversion of St. Paul. 



Chap. XIV 



CONYBEARE AND 
IIOWSON. 


Lewin. 


Taule of St. Paul's Life. 


A.I>. 


A.D. 




About 5 or 6 


About 11 


Birth of Saul at Tarsus. 


36 


36or37 


Martyrdom of St. Stephen. 


87 


37 


Conversion of St. Paul. 


39 


39 
(Feast of Taberna- 
cles.) 


His first visit to Jerusalem, 


39-40 


39-40 


Rest of the Jewish Churches. 


40 


40 


Conversion of Cornelius. 


44 


43 


Barnabas fetches Saul from Tarsus to An- 
tioch. 


44 


44 


Famine ; and death of Herod Agrippa I. 


44 or 45 


44 


Barnabas and Saul go to Jerusalem with the 




(Before the Passover.) 


collection. (Paul's second visit.) 


4S-49 


45-46 


Paul's First Missionary Journey. 


50 


4S 


Paul and Barnabas go up to the Council at 

Jerusalem. 
Paul's third visit.* 


51 


49 


Paul's Second Missionary Journey. 


52 


52 


Paid arrives at Corinth, where he stays 18 




(February.) 


months. 


54 


53 


Paul arrives at Jerusalem. 


(Pentecost.) 


(Tabernacles.) 


His fourth visit.i 

Winters at Antioch (Lewin). 


54 


54 


Paul's Third Missionary Journey. 


(Latter half.) 


(Beginning.) 




55 


54 


He reaches Ephesus, where he stays 3 full 




(May.) 


years (Lewin). 


55-5T 


54-57 




57 


51 
(About Pentecost.) 


Leaves Ephesus for Macedonia. 


57-58 


57-5S 


Winters at Corinth (8 months). 


53 


5S 
(March 27.) 


Reaches Philippi at the Passover. 


5S 


53 


Reaches Jerusalem at Pentecost. 




(May 17.) 


Paul's fifth visit, and arrest in the Temple. 


58-60 


58-60 


Imprisonment at Caesarea. 


60 


60 

(About Midsummer.) 


Festus succeeds Felix. 


60 


60 
(End of August.) 


Paul sails for Rome. 




About Nov. 1 


His shipwreck at Malta. 


61 


61 
(Beginning of March.) 


Paul reaches Rome. 




61-63 


His first imprisonment (two years). 


63 


63 


On his release Paul 




(Spring.) 


goes to Macedonia 


sails for Jerusalem, 






and Asia Minor 


and visits Antioch, 






(C. & H.). 


Colossse and Ephesus. 


64-66 


64 


(Lewin.) Paul, after visiting Crete, leaves 


(In Spain ?) 




Ephesus for Macedonia. 


67-8 


64-5 


Winters at Nicopolis. 




65 


(Lewin.) Visits Dalmatia, and returns 
through Macedonia andTroas to Ephesus, 
where he is arrested and sent to Rome. 


! 6S 


66 


Martyrdom of St. Paul at Rome. 


! (May or June.) 

i 


(June 29.) 





* Dr. Howson identifies this visit with that ofGalatians u., and places the collision with 
Peter at Antioch after it. 

t Mr. Lewin identifies this visit with that of Galatians M., and places the collision witli 
Peter at Antioch after it. 








Antioch. 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE GENTILES RECEIVED INTO THE CHURCH. 

FROM AFTER THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL TO THE DECREE 0# 
THE FIRST COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM, INCLUDING TEE FIRST 
MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF PAUL AND BARNABAS. A.D. 40- 
A.D. 43 OR 50. 

§ 1. St. Peter at Lydda and Joppa — Healing of iEneas and raising of Dor- 
cas. § 2. Mission of St. Peter to Cornelius — The first Gentile con- 
verts — Nature of this transaction — It is confirmed at Jerusalem. § 3. 
The Gospel preached to the Greeks at Antioch — Mission of Barnabas — 
He seeks out Saul at Tarsus. § 4. Accession of Claudius — Herod 
Agrippa I., King of Judaea — He beheads James and imprisons Peter, 
who is delivered by an angel — Death of Herod Agrippa I. § 5. Paul's 
ministry in Syria and Cilicia — Barnabas and Saul at Antioch — The 
name of Christian — Mission of Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem (his 
second visit). § G. Paul's rapture and infirmity. § 7. The Church at 
Antioch — Separation of Barnabas and Saul for the mission to the Gen- 
tiles. § 8. Their First Missionary Journey — From Antioch by 
Seleucia to Salamis in Cyprus — They preach in the Jewish. Syna- 
gogues — Through Cyprus to Paphos — Judgment on the sorcerer 
Elymas, and conversion of the proconsul Sergius Paulus. § 9. The 



426 Reception of the Gentiles. Chap. XV. 

name of Paul. § 10. The voyage from Cyprus to Perga in Pam- 
phylia — The passage of the Taurus— Desertion of John Mark— His 
subsequent relations to Paul and Peter — Apostleship of Barnabas. 
§ 11. The Apostles at Antioch in Pisiclia — Paul's discourse in the 
S}'nagogue — Justification by Faith, in Christ no merely Pauline doctrine, 
§ 12. The following Sabbath — Opposition of the Jews — "Lo ! we turn 
to the Gentiles" — The Apostles driven from Antioch. §13. Success 
and persecution at Iconium — Lycaonia — The miracle and discourse at 
Lystra — Derbe. § 14. Return of the Apostles. § 15. Ordination of 
Elders. § 10. Judaizing teachers come to Antioch and require the 
Gentile converts to observe the Law — Mission of Paul and Barnaba^ 
with others, to Jerusalem. § 17. This (third) visit probably that of 
Galatians ii. — Paul goes up by revelation — Conferences and compact 
with the other Apostles, James, Peter and John. § 18. Public dis- 
cussion in the Church — Speech of Peter— Report of Paul and Barna- 
bas — Advice of James. § 19. Decision of the Assembly — Its signifi- 
cance : the emancipation both of Jews and Gentiles, and the univer- 
sality of the Gospel. § 20. Episode of Paul's subsequent reproof of 
Peter — The Assembly at Jerusalem wrongly called the First Council — 
Return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, with Judas and Silas — Silas 
remains at Antioch — Christianity at Rome. 

§ 1. It was in the interval of rest described in the preced- 
ing chapter, which we may place in the latter part of Calign 
la's reign,,that Peter made what appears to have been an 
Apostolical visitation of all the churches already established. 1 
Arriving at Lydda, in the great maritime plain of Sharon,* 
he performed a miracle of healing on a certain ^Eneas, wh<& 
had been bedridden with palsy for eight years. Imitating 
the manner of his Master in the command, " Arise, and make 
thy bed," he was careful to show the source of the power 
which accompanied his words by saying, " Jesus Ch?*ist 
maketh thee whole." The miracle was followed by the gen- 
eral conversion of the inhabitants of the city of Lydda and 
the plain of Sharon. 8 

Nine miles from Lydda, and on the sea-shore, stands Joppa, 
the ancient port of Solomon. Here dwelt a disciple, whose 

1 Acts ix. 32 : dtepxofitvov did 7cdv- 1 of Ahi-Butrus (Peter), in memory of 
Tiov sc. iKK\7](nu>v. I the Apostle. It is, for a Mahomet- 



! This name, the Hebrew Lod is 
still retained by the modern Lidd or 
Ludd, which probably occupies the 
same site. It stands in a part of 
the great maritime plain which an- 
ciently bore the name of Sbaron. It 
is 9 miles from Joppa, and is the 
first town on the northernmost of the 
two roads between that place and Je- 
rusalem. The water-course outside 
the town is said still to bear the name 



an place, busy and prosperous. Bur- 
ied in palms, and with a large well 
close to the entrance, it looks from a 
distance inviting enough, but its in- 
terior is very repulsive on account of 
the extraordinary number of persons, 
old and young, whom one encounters 
at every step, either totally blind, or 
afflicted with loathsome diseases of 
the eves. 

3 Acts Tx. 32-35^ 



A.D. 40. 



Mission to Cornelius. 



427 



name — Tabitha in Aramaic, in Greek Dorcas, that is, gazelle 
—generally associated in the East with the perfection of fe- 
male beauty — has become the type of the greater loveliness 
of that charity with which she clothed the poor by the labor 
of her own hands. Her death was felt so grievous a loss by 
the brethren at Joppa, that they sent messengers to Lydda, 
praying for a visit from St. Peter. His arrival was followed 
by the crowning miracle which proved that the spiritual gifts 
conferred by Christ upon his Apostles did not stop short of 
power over life and death. And in this case also, Peter pro- 
ceeded after the example given by our Saviour in raising the 
daughter of Jairus. 4 Putting forth from the chamber, where 
the corpse was already laid out for burial, the mourners whose 
lamentations and display of the garments she had made 
proved at once the reality of her death and the sense of their 
loss, Peter knelt down and prayed. Then, turning* to the 
body, he said, " Tabitha, arise !" " And she opened her eyes : 
and when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his 
hand, and lifted her up, and when he had called the saints and 
widows, he presented her alive." The news spread through 
Joppa ; many believed on the Lord ; and Peter took up his 
abode for a long time among the converts, in the house of 
his namesake, Simon a tanner, on the sea-shore. 5 

§ 2. Here it was the Apostle's custom to ascend at noon to 
the house-top, which looked over the western waters, for soli' 
tary prayer ; unconsciously blending his devotions with those 
which a Roman soldier at Caesarea was continually offering, 
that new light might be added to what he had learned as a 
"proselyte of the gate." . This soldier was Cornelius, a cen- 
turion of the Italian Cohort, " a just man, and one that feared 
God, with all his house, and of good report among all the 
Jewish nation, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed 
to God alway." To this man's devotion, and faithfulness to 
the light he had, was vouchsafed a vision of an angel, bidding 
him to send to Joppa for Simon Peter, who should tell him 
what he ought to do. It was no phantasm of a nocturnal 
dream, but an open vision, manifest to his waking sense, at 
three o'clock in the afternoon, as he was praying in his house 
at the hour of the evening sacrifice. 



4 Matt. ix. 25 ; Mark v. 40-42. 

5 Acts ix. 36-43. 

6 This seems to have been a cohort 
of Italians, probably volunteers, sep- 
arate from the legionaries. Such a 
cohort is mentioned in an inscrip- 



tion : — " Cohors militum Italicorum 
voluntaria, qua) est in Syria." See 
Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul, 
vol i. p. 143, ed. of 186a; Lewin's 
Fast. Sac. s. a. 40. 



428 Reception of the Gentiles. Chap. XV. 

His messengers were already approaching Joppa on the 
following day, when Peter also, in his midday retirement upon 
the house-top, was visited in a trance by a vision which taught 
him, through emblems specially adapted to his prejudices as a 
Jew, the hardest lesson for a Jew to learn, " that he should 
not call any man common or unclean," and which was inter- 
preted by the words, thrice repeated from heaven — " What 
God hath cleansed, that call not thou common !" The lesson 
was at once enforced by the arrival of the messengers of 
Cornelius and the command of the Spirit to go with them ; 
and the journey of a day and a half from Joppa to Caesarea 
gave Peter time to reflect upon this meaning. So, when he 
found Cornelius waiting with his kinsmen and near friends, 
to hear the divine message from his mouth, he was prepared 
to declare the great principle of the new dispensation : — " Of 
a truth # I perceive that God is no respecter of persons ; but 
in every nation, he that f eareth him and worketh righteousness 
is accepted with him." Then to these Gentiles he preached 
the Gospel of the life and death of Christ, his resurrection 
and coming again to judgment, and the remission of sins 
through his name to all who believe in him. While Peter 
was in the act of speaking, the believing reception of his 
words by Cornelius and his friends was divinely ratified by 
the immediate effusion of the Holy Spirit, repeating for these 
representatives of the Gentiles the gift bestowed on the 
Jews at Pentecost, and conferring the power of speaking 
with tongues. The sign was needed to remove the doubts, 
if not of the Apostle himself, of the Judaizing Christians who 
accompanied him ; for the existence of that party is already 
indicated in the narrative by the phrase, " they of the circum- 
cision." 7 While they were silent with astonishment, Peter 
decided all doubt concerning the full reception of these new 
converts into the Church by the argument, " Can any man 
forbid water that these should not be baptized, which have 
received the Holy Ghost as well as we V He commanded 
them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, and stayed 
some days among them. 8 

This event was the crown and consummation of Peter's 
ministry. He, who had first preached the resurrection to the 
Jews, baptized the first converts, and confirmed the Samari- 
tans, now, without the advice or co-operation of any of his 
colleagues, under direct communication from heaven, first 

7 Acts x. 45, xi. 2. I ticc that Peter does not baptize them 

e Acts x. It is well worthy of no- | himself. 



A.D. 41. First Gentile Church at Antioch. 429 

threw down the barrier which separated proselytes of the 
gate from Israelites ; first established principles which issued 
in the complete fusion of the Hebrew and Gentile elements in 
the Church. The narrative of this event, which stands alone 
in minute circumstantiality of incidents and accumulation of 
supernatural agency, is twice recorded by St. Luke. The 
chief points to be recorded are, first, the peculiar fitness of 
Cornelius, both as a representative of Roman force and na- 
tionality, and a devout and liberal worshiper, to be a recipient 
of such privileges ; and secondly, the state of the Apostle's 
own mind. Whatever may have been his hopes or fears 
touching the heathen, the idea had certainly not yet crossed 
him that they could become Christians without first becoming 
Jews. As a loyal and believing Hebrew, he could not contem- 
plate the removal of Gentile disqualifications, without a dis- 
tinct assurance that those enactments of the Law which con- 
cerned them were abrogated by a divine legislator. The vis- 
ion could not therefore have been the product of a subjective 
impression: it was strictly objective, presented to his mind 
by an external influence. Yet the will of the Apostle was 
not controlled, it was simply enlightened. The intimation in 
the state of trance did not at once overcome his reluctance. 
It was not until his consciousness was fully restored, and he 
had Avell considered the meaning of the vision, that he learned 
that the distinction of cleanness and uncleanness in outward 
things belonged to a temporary dispensation. It was no 
mere acquiescence in a positive command, but the develop- 
ment of a spirit full of generous impulses, which found utter- 
ance in the words spoken by Peter on that occasion, both in 
presence of Cornelius and afterward at Jerusalem. 

But the Church at Jerusalem were slow to learn the lesson 
involved in the tidings that the Gentiles had also received the 
Word of God. When Peter returned to Jerusalem, he was 
accused by " those of the circumcision " because he had eaten 
with the uncircumcised. But his plain narrative of the whole 
transaction, crowned by the argument that, in the outpouring 
of the Holy Ghost, he had recognized that same baptism of 
the Spirit which Christ had promised as the sign of his pres- 
ence with the Apostles themselves, silenced every objection, 
and opened every mouth in praise to God for the great revela- 
tion which marks this epoch in the history of the Church : — 
C! Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto 
life.'''' Thus had the preaching of the Word, which the Apos- 
tles had begun, according to their Lord's command, from. Je- 
rusalem, reached every class within the limits of Judyya; the 



430 Reception of the Gentiles. Chap. XV, 

Jew and the Samaritan ; the proselyte from the distant south, 
and the Gentiles from Rome herself ; while the Great Apostle 
of the Gentiles had received his divine commission, which 
he was already beginning to exercise in Syria and Cilicia. 

§ 3. Nor was this all, for Jerusalem was surprised by the 
tidings that the Gospel had reached the Greek capital of the 
East. In fact, in the history of the diffusion of Christianity, 
Antioch. 9 occupies a place even more conspicuous than Jeru- 
salem itself. There the first Gentile Church was formed; 
there the name of Christian was first heard ; and thence the 
Gosj>el was first diffused over the Eastern Provinces of the 
Roman Empire and carried over into Europe. Its geograph- 
ical position, its political and commercial importance, and the 
presence of a large and powerful Jewish element in its popu- 
lation, were the more obvious characteristics which made it 
fit for such a centre of Gentile Christianity. The great wave 
of Gospel diffusion, which had its centre in the blow struck 
at Stephen and the Christians at Jerusalem, passed over the 
northern frontier of Palestine, along the Phoenician coast, 
across to Cyprus, and into Syria as far as Antioch. But, 
while the dispersed Christians preached the Gosj^el every- 
where, it was at first only to the Jews. But certain of the Hel- 
lenists among them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, soon grew 
bolder; and, on their arrival at Antioch, they spake to the 
Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus. " And the hand of the 
Lord was with them, and a great number believed, and turned 
unto the Lord." 10 It is probable that these Greeks were in 
the same religious position as Cornelius — proselytes of the 
gate — and their conversion was so nearly simultaneous with 
his, that when the news reached Jerusalem it found the 
Church prepared to act on the lesson taught through Peter. 
Barnabas — who, as at once a Levite and a native of Cyprus, 
as well as by the powers of gentle persuasion that gained him 
his surname, 11 was a chief link between the Hebrews and the 



9 Antioch, founded in B.C. 300 by 
Seleucus Nicator, and named in hon- 
or of his father, Antioch us, was the 
capital of the Greek kings of Syria, 
and afterward the residence of the 
Roman governors of the province 
which bore the same name. It was 
situated where the chain of Lebanon, 
running northward, and the chain 
of Taurus, running eastward, are 
brought to an abrupt meeting. Here 
the Orontes breaks through the 



mountains; and Antiocli was placed 
at a bend of the river, partly on an 
island, partly on the level which 
forms the left bank, and partly on 
the steep and craggy ascent of Mount 
Silpius, which rose abruptly on the 
south. 

10 Acts xi. 19, 20. The reading 
"EXXrjvac is now fully accepted in 
place of 'E\\r)vi(TTdg. 

11 Acts iv. 36 : vloq TrapaicXrjcreioc, 
son of exhortation, rather than of con* 



A.D. 44. 



Herod's Persecution and Death, 



431 



Hellenists — besides having the higher qualifications so emphat- 
ically recorded by St. Luke : " He was a good man, and full of 
the Holy Ghost and of faith " — Barnabas was sent to Anti- 
och. The lesson that had been given to Peter needed not rep- 
etition in his case. It was enough for him to see " the grace 
of God," to exhort the new converts to cleave to the Lord 
with all their heart. His labors were more and more sue 
cessful; "much people was added unto the Lord." Barna- 
bas saw in this movement at Antioch the beginning of a great 
work among the Greeks; and, intent upon rinding a fit asso- 
ciate in the new labors before him, he departed to Tarsus to 
seek Saul, whom he had formerly introduced to the Apos- 
tles. 12 -* 
§ 4. Meanwhile the state of rest enjoyed by the Churches 
of Jud«3a had come to an end. Upon the assassination of Ca- 
ligula, the praetorian cohorts of Rome had raised Claudius to 
the purple ; and one of the new emperor's first acts was to re- 
ward the services of Herod Agrltpa I. with the kingdom of 
Judaea 13 (a.d. 41). We have already described that policy of 
conciliation to the Jews, which led Herod to begin the first 
regal persecution of the Christians by the beheading of the 
first Apostolic martyr, James, the brother of John, and to fol- 
low up the stroke by the imprisonment of Peter. It was dur- 
ing the Passover, probably in the last year of Herod's short 
reign 14 (a.d. 44), that he placed Peter under the strictest 
guard, intending to gratify the people by his death as soon as 
the feast was over. The night before the day fixed for the 
execution had arrived; and Peter, long since prepared by 
Christ's prediction for the death which now seemed appoint 
ed for the very season of his Master's passion, was sleeping 
soundly between two soldiers, bound by two chains, when a 
sudden light filled his cell ; an angel roused him from his 
sleep, and led him through guards and through doors that 
opened of their own accord into the street. The angel had 
departed before Peter recovered from the impression that 
all was a vision. He repaired to the house of Mary, the moth- 
er of John Mark, where many disciples were assembled in 
prayer. Alarmed at first by his knocking at the door, on that 
night of special danger, they could scarcely be convinced by 



solution. Comp. the TrapiKctku of 
Acts xi. 23. 

12 Acts xi. 22-26. 

13 See chap. v. § 7. 

14 This seems clear from the se- 
quence of the narrative in Acts xiL 



We can easily understand that Her- 
od had been hitherto fully occupied 
with his measures for consolidating 
his power and improving Jerusalem. 
The Passover fell this year on April 
1st, 



432 Reception of the Gentiles, Chap. XV, 

the sound of his own voice, but thought that it was his angel. 
Admitted at length, Peter told them the manner of his deliv- 
erance, and, having sent a special message to James, 15 and the 
other brethren, departed into some safe retreat. In the morn- 
ing, the prison was found in full security and order, but with 
the prisoner gone. The king took vengeance on the guards, 
and then departed for Cresarea, to keep that festival at 
which he himself became the signal mark of God's venge- 
ance. 18 

§ 5. From the position of this narrative in the Acts, be- 
tween the mission of Paul and Barnabas by the Church of 
Antioch and their return, they would naturally seem to have 
been witnesses of the persecution ; but it is doubtful whether 
their visit took place before the death of Herod. We must 
look back to the events that led Paul to pay this his second 
visit to Jerusalem after his conversion. The interval of un- 
certain length, which he spent in Cilicia and Syria, after his 
flight from Jerusalem to Tarsus, is a blank in the story of the 
Acts j but some commentators refer to this period the chief 
part at least of the perils and sufferings which he recounts to 
the Corinthians, including two'Roman and five Jewish scourg- 
ings, and three shipwrecks. 17 At all events, we may safely re- 
gard this as the great probationary period of the Apostle's 
ministry, in which, laboring alone and unaided by man, he 
was specially prepared for the Avide field to which he was 
called when Barnabas came to Tarsus to seek his aid for the 
work at Antioch. The two devoted brethren labored for a 
whole year in the Church at Antioch, " teaching much people," 
till the adherents of the new faith grew to such importance as 
to be enrolled among the schools of religious and philosophic 
opinion recognized by the Greeks and Romans. The disci- 
pies were called Christians first at Antioch ; 18 and they soon 

15 This is the first direct evidence this name (a full account of which 
(confirmed by Gal. i. ] 9) that ' ' James will be found in Conybeare and How- 
the Less " already occupied a sort of son), all that requires to be said is 
presidency over the Church of Jeru- that its form (a Latin adjective in 
aalem. | -amis) shows it to have been invented 

1G Acts xii. : comp. chap. v. § 7. by the Gentiles as the appellation of 
Mr. Lewin places the death of Herod j a sect, like Pompeiani, etc. It was 
about May. soon adopted by the Christians, who 

17 2 Cor. xi. 23, foil. Conybeare j had before called themselves disci- 
and Howson, vol. i. pp. 129-133, ii. pies, brethren, saints, those of the way, 
p. 140. In the Acts we have only j and by similar appellations, which are 
mention of the third Roman scourging \ frequent in the New Testament, while 
(v. 25) at Philippi, and the stoning I the Jews called them Naaarenes. Be- 
(v. 25) at Lystra. ! sides the passage before us, the name 

18 After the discussions respecting ' Christian is used only twice in the 



A..D. 45. Mission to Jerusalem. 433 

gave the first great example of a beneficence peculiarly Chris- 
tian. 

It can not but be regarded as a special act of Divine Prov- 
idence, that knit together in " the fellowship of giving and re- 
ceiving" the two branches of the Church, which had thus 
grown up among the Jews and Greeks, and which might have 
been tempted into a rivalry foreshadowing the worldly con-' 
flicts of the " Patriarchs " of Jerusalem and Antioch. Cer- 
tain prophets went down from Jerusalem to Antioch, one of 
whom, named Agabus — who afterward warned Paul of his 
imprisonment 19 — foretold through the Spirit the approach of a 
great famine. The fulfillment of the prediction is placed in 
the Acts " in the days of Claudius Caesar ; " 20 but Josephus 
mentions a great famine which afflicted Judaea when Cuspius 
Fadus and Tiberius Alexander were procurators of Judaea. 
Now Fadus was the first procurator sent out when Judaea 
was again brought under the Roman government after the 
death of Herod Agrippa I. It would of course be at the be- 
ginning of the famine that the Christians of Antioch, fore- 
warned by the prophet, sent relief to the brethren in Judaea 
by the hands of Barnabas and Saul, 21 whose visit to Jerusalem 
may therefore be placed in a.d. 45. A confirmatory indica- 
tion of the date is obtained from their taking back with them 
John Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, who may have been 
specially exposed to persecution on account of the assembly 
of the brethren in his mother's house. 22 Nothing more is re- 
corded of this visit in the Acts; and it deserves special notice 
that, if its time be rightly fixed, the recent flight of Peter 
from Jerusalem would prevent any intercourse on this occa- 
sion between him and Paul. 23 

N. T., once by Agrippa (Acts xxvi. (writer might use the phrase »/ oj/co- 

28), and once by Peter (1 Pet. iv. 16). | v\iivi\ for the whole land of Palestine. 

13 Acts xxi. 10. The same person In the particular famine recorded by 

must be meant in both places ; for 1 Josephus, some relief was given to 



not only the name, but the prophetic 
office and the residence ("of Judasa") 
are the same in both instances. 

20 Acts xi. 27, 28. A difficulty is 
suggested by the statement "that 
there should be great dearth throughout 
all the ivorld." But this was literally 
true of the reign of Claudius ; for, 
though historians give no account of 
any universal famine in his reign, 
they speak of repeated and severe lo- 
cal famines in various countries of 
the empire. Moreover, a Jewish 

T 



the Jews by Helena, Queen of Adia- 
bene, a proselyte, who was then at Je- 
rusalem, and who imported corn from 
Egypt and Cyprus (Joseph. Ant. xx. 
2, §6; 5, §2). 

21 Acts xi. 29, 30. 

22 Acts xii. 25 : comp. ver. 12. 

23 This is one argument against its 
being the visit mentioned in Gal. ii. 
1. Mr. Lewin, however, argues that, 
as we have evidence that -the famine 
began in Italy as early as a.d. 42 or 
even 41, the first year of Claudius, 



434 Reception of the Gentiles. Chap. XV. 

§ 6= But we learn from Paul's own testimony that there 
was not wanting to him, on this occasion also, one of those su- 
pernatural visits which appear to have marked each one of 
his sojournings at Jerusalem, and which indicate the care of 
his Divine Master to renew the grace given to him at first, 
and to keep up his sensitive spirit to the pitch of his mighty 
work. That marvelous rapture (probably, like his former 
vision, in the Temple) — in which, whether in or out of the 
body he could not tell, he was caught up into the third heav- 
en, and heard words which no man might utter — is stated in 
his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the date of which is 
fixed to a.d. 57, to have occurred "about fourteen years ago," 
a phrase which justifies our computing by years current, and 
so brings us to a.d. 44 or 45, 24 And this view is most admi- 
rably suited to the revelation which was thus made to the 
Apostle on the eve of his departure for his first missionary 
tour among the Gentiles. For then it was that he was about 
especially to encounter those " infirmities, reproaches, necessi- 
ties, persecutions, distresses for Christ's sake," in which he 
most gladly gloried rather than in the honor of the revelation 
itself. Then it was that he was taught, as a needful sequel to 
the revelation, the great lesson of Christian humility and con- 
fidence — " My grace is sufficient for thee ; for my strength is 
made perfect in weakness" But even Paul's self-sacrificing 
spirit needed to be taught this lesson by the discipline, not of 
suffering only, but of a humiliating affliction ; and, like Job, 
he was given over to the great enemy, to worry though not to 
devour, within the compass of his tether. " Lest I should be 
exalted above measure through the abundance of the revela- 
tions, there was given to me a thorn (or rather, stake) in the 
flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be 
exalted above measure." That this was some permanent in- 
firmity (ok6\o$), which troubled and hindered the Apostle 
through his subsequent career, seems plain from his expression 



before whose accession the prophecy 
of Agabus was evidently given, it 
might have been felt in Judaea before 
the time named by Josephns as that 
of its severest pressure. He therefore 
places the visit of Paul and Barna- 
bas just before the Passover of a.d. 
44, and supposes them to have been 
at Jerusalem at the time of Peter's 
arrest and deliverance. 

34 2 Cor. xii. The erroneous date 



the margin of the A.V., has led to 
the fantastic idea that the vision was 
seen by St. Paul in a trance, while he 
lay apparently dead from his stoning 
at Lystra, a supposition which is also 
negatived by his own words, ' ' Wheth- 
er in the body, or out of the body I 
can not tell : God knoweth ;" for the 
bruised body round which the disci- 
ples stood watching, was certainly 
not at that time "caught up into 



of a.d. GO, assigned to the Epistle in ' heaven " (Acts xiv. 19, 20). 



A.D. 45. 



PauVs Rapture and Infirmity. 



435 



of resignation to it, after his thrice-repeated prayer for its re- 
moval had been answered only by an encouragement to sub- 
mission. Nor need we hesitate to draw from the general 
course of God's providence the conclusion that it was either, 
like physical infirmities in general, a relic of some past sin, or 
that, like Jacob's lameness, it was a memorial of some great in- 
cident in his history. Connecting it with the statement that 
" his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible," 
in striking contrast to his weighty letters, 25 some suppose it to 
have been an impediment in his speech, which would be pecul- 
iarly distressing, nay, injurious, to such a man engaged in 
such a work — a judicial infliction on that tongue which had 
blasphemed Christ and condemned the first Christian martyr. 
A more ingenious conjecture regards the affliction as an in- 
firmity of eye-sight, varying from time to time in severity, the 
relic of the blindness with which Paul was smitten on his way 
to Damascus, and the perpetual memorial, as in the case of 
Jacob, of a conflict with God, from which no man could come 
forth unscathed. It can scarcely be doubted that the affliction 
was the same as that " infirmity of the flesh," from which 
Paul suffered in his first visit to the Galatians, who, instead of 
despising him for it, were ready to have plucked out their own 
eyes and have given them to him. 26 But after all, it is best to 
believe that in this, as in other cases, the silence of Scripture 
is intentional ; to the end that men of natures more ardent 
than their strength, whose spirit is willing, but whose flesh is 
weak, may learn from Paul's example to acknowledge and bow 
beneath the hand of God in those impediments, but for which 
they would become boasters ; nay, to rejoice, that the glory of 
what they can yet do is not their own but God's. 



25 2 Cor. x. 10. This view seems 
difficult to reconcile with that mani- 
fest power, which has caused even 
unbelievers to testify that " Paul was 
a great orator." A man with an 
impediment in his speech would hard- 
ly have been taken for Mercury even 
by the rude Lycaonians; nor would 
he have made so powerful an im- 
pression upon Felix and Festus and 
Agrippa. In fact, the objection of 
the polished Corinthians seems rather 
to refer to Paul's rhetoric than his 
elocution, to his language rather than 
his utterance, — that " great plain- 
ness," or even "rudeness of speech," 
as he presently calls it (2 Cor. xi. G : 



comp. iii. 12, vii. 4, and 1 Cor. i. 17, 
ii. 1, 4, 13), which scorned the "entic- 
ing words of man's wisdom," then 
taught in all the schools of rhetoric, 
especiallv at Corinth. 

20 Gal.'iv. 13-15. Mr. Lewin, who 
adopts this view, finds a confirma- 
tion of it in Acts xvii. 15, 19, com- 
pared with 1 Thess. iii. 1 ; as it would 
be peculiarly distressing to Paul "to 
bs left at Athens alone " while suffer- 
ing from partial blindness. Assuredly 
the Apostle would not have "gloried 
in this infirmity," had it been a 
strong sensual temptation", as certain 
Roman Catholics hold, or a prone- 
iiess to unbelief, as Luther thought. 



436 



Reception of the Gentiles. 



Chap. XV. 



§ 7. Some time after Barnabas and Saul had returned from 
this mission — in which the latter had a special opportunity of 
gaining confidence with his Jewish brethren before entering 
on his great work among the Gentiles — the signal for that 
work was divinely given. 27 The same Spirit which had been 
poured on the assembled disciples at Pentecost now spoke to 
the Church at Antioch, commanding the separation of Barna 
bas and Saul from among a number of brethren, who are men- 
tioned by name, as if to show both how strong the chief Gen 
tile Church had become in spiritual gifts, and that, if distinc- 
tion in that Church had been the rule of choice, others might 
have been preferred before Saul. 28 For among the " proph- 
ets and teachers " in the Church of Antioch, though Barnabas 
is named first, Saul is placed last. We should forget the 
whole method of the divine work in the nurture of the 
Church, by ascribing to this impulse of the Holy Ghost any 
startling suddenness, or disconnecting it from the thoughts 
that were brooding in the minds of the disciples. The recent 
converts, who had acquired the new name of Christians at An- 
tioch, must often have asked themselves the question, " What 
is the meaning of this faith of ours, of this baptism, of this in- 
corporation, of this kingdom of the Son of God, for the world? 
The Gospel is not for Judsea alone : here are we called by it 
at Antioch. Is it meant to stop here ? " At every point we 
find both circumstances and inward reasonings preparing 
the crisis ; and the very attitude of expectation is seen in the 
fact that they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, when 



27 We have again no specific note 
of time for the interval between the 
two visits of Barnabas and Paul to 
Jerusalem in a.d. 44 or 45, and a.d. 
48 or 50, which embraces the First 
Missionary Journey, and the two 
residences at Antioch, before and aft- 
er it. As to the season of the journey, 
Mr. Howson (vol. i. c. 5) argues, with 
much ingenuity, that if the Apostles 
started from Seleucia with the first 
opening of the navigation in early 
spring, and spent about two months 
in Cyprus, they would enter upon 
their upland route from Perga about 
the end of May, when the snow melts 
from the passes of the Taurus, and 
when the natives are accustomed to 
retire for the hot season to the cool 
hollows of the highlands. The sum- 
mer seems a period full short for all 



the events at Iconium, Lystra, and 
Derbe, and for the leisurely return to 
the coast, before the passes and the 
navigation were again closed. Wo 
may therefore include a considerable 
part of the winter in the rest which 
seems to have been made at Derbe, 
and place the return to Syria in the 
following summer ; thus assigning to 
the whole journey parts of two years, 
which Conybeare and Howson make 
a.d. 48 and 49. But the special 
preparation which we have just seen 
Paul receiving, and the " long time " 
afterward spent by Paul and Barna- 
bas at Antioch seem in favor of an 
earlier date; and accordingly Mr. 
Lewin agrees with the margin of the 
A.V. in placing the journey in a.d. 
45-4G. 

28 Acts xiii. 1. 



A.D. 45 (?). First Missionary Journey. 437 

the Holy Ghost said, " Separate me Barnabas and Saul for 
the work whereunto I have called them." 29 The " work " 
could no longer be doubtful to the Church of Antioch ; and 
they could not but see the fitness of the choice of Saul, the 
accomplished Hellenist, who had already been designated as 
" a chosen vessel to bear the name of the Lord before the 
Gentiles, and kings, and the people of Israel;" — and of 
Barnabas, who had been the first both to recognize the calling 
of Saul and the work of God among themselves. 

All this time, we infer from the form of St. Lake's lan- 
guage — which can not be accidental — that Saul was subordi- 
nate. to Barnabas. Until Saul becomes Paul, we read of " Bar- 
nabas and Saul ; " 30 afterward we have both " Paul and Barna- 
bas " and " Barnabas and Paul." 31 In the latter passage, more- 
over, they are jointly called Apostles , a dignity bestowed on 
Barnabas (if not before) by this divine call to a work proper- 
ly apostolic. Just as the mystic number of the twelve at first 
referred to the tribes of Israel, the departure from it by the 
addition of Saul and Barnabas was one sign of the indefinite 
extension of the Gospel. When we look back, from the high- 
er ground of St. Paul's apostolic activity, to the years that 
passed between his conversion and the first missionary jour- 
ney, we can not observe without reverence the patient humili- 
ty with which Saul waited for his Master's time. He did not 
say for once only, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " 
Obedience to Christ was thenceforth his ruling principle. 
Submitting, as he believed, to his Lord's direction, he was 
content to work for a long time as the subordinate colleague 
of his seniors in the faith. He was thus the better prepared, 
when the call came, to act with the authority which that call 
conferred upon him. He left Antioch, however, still the sec- 
ond to Barnabas. Every thing was done with orderly gravi- 
ty in the sending forth of the two missionaries. Their breth- 
ren, after fasting and prayer, laid their hands on them, and so 
they departed. 32 

§ 8. First Missionary Journey of Barnabas and Saul. — 
The two Apostles, with John Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, 
as a sort of subordinate minister, 33 embarked at Seleucia, the 



29 



Acts xiii. 2. 1 the ceremony of ordination, which 



30 Acts xi. 30, xii. 25, xiii. 2, 7. 

S1 Acts xiii. 46 } xiv. 14. 

32 Acts xiv. 8. In a work which 
clces not meddle with ecclesiastical | yi. 2. 
questions, it will be enough to refer 33 Acts xiii. 5 : e7%ov de icai 'lojdwni 
& the following passages respecting I vt\-k^tt\v. 



the Christian Church adopted from 
the Jewish : — Acts vi. 6 ; 1 Timothy 
iv. 14, v. 22 ; 2 Timothy i. 6 ; Heb. 



438 



Reception of the Gentiles. 



Chap. XV 



port of Antioch, at the mouth of the Orontes, for Salamis in 
Cyprus. Besides the constant intercourse between the two 
ports, which are only distant a few hours' sail, and the natu- 
ral desire of Barnabas to begin the work among his own kin- 
dred, we have seen that there were already Christians in the 
island, to whom Antioch itself owed in part the preaching of 
the Gospel; and there were numerous synagogues of Jews. 
We must observe that, in each of these missionary journeys, 
the Apostles, though sent forth specially to the Gentiles, nev- 
er failed first to offer the Gospel to their Jewish brethren. 
For not only was this the order prescribed by the Lord, 
but the most hopeful course of reaching the Gentiles was 
through the proselytes and Hellenistic Jews, though their hard- 
ness of heart ultimately frustrated this hope. Such was the 
order proclaimed by St. Paul in the synagogue at Antioch in 
Pisidia : — " The Jews at Jerusalem, in their willful ignorance 
of the prophets, have fulfilled them in condemning Christ : to 
you, therefore, children of the stock of Abraham everywhere, 
is the word of this salvation sent." " It was necessary that 
the Word of God should first have been spoken to you ; but, 
seeing that ye also put it from you,, and judge yourselves un- 
worthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." 34 

In this passage, as at every step in the whole journey, we 
see the Apostles' own estimate of the work to which the Holy 
Ghost had called them — to speak the Word of God ; and ac- 
cordingly they began their ministry at Salamis by preaching 
the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. That 
Word was the same with which Christ himself had begun his 
public ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth— the fulfillment 
of prophecy in the coming of Jesus Christ to be the Saviour 
of the whole world. Thus they traversed the length of Cyprus, 
from Salamis on the eastern coast to Paphos on the western. 35 
The latter city, celebrated throughout Greek history for the 
orgies of Venus, was now the residence of the Roman pro- 
consul — for Cyprus, though at first made one of the Caesar's 
provinces, was restored by Augustus to the Senate, and we 
possess a coin of one of its proconsuls of the time of Claudi- 



r4 Acts xiii. 26, 27, 4G. 

35 Salamis was situated at the E. 
end of the island, not far from the 
modern Famagousta. Its harbor is 
spoken of by Greek writers as very 
good. Paphos was at the W. e*nd of 
the island, connected by a road with 
Salamis. It was famous for the wor- 
ship of Aphrodite (Venus), who was 



here fabled to have risen from the 
sea (Horn. Od. viii. 302). Her tem- 
ple was at "Old Paphos," now called 
Kuklia, and was connected by a short 
road, often traversed by gay and prof- 
ligate processions, with the harbor 
and chief town of "New Paphos," 
which still preserves the name of 
Bceffh. 



A.D. 45 (?). 



Sergius Paulus and Elymas. 



439 



us. 36 This office was now held by Sergius Paulus, a man of 
intelligence, 37 but, like most of the Roman nobility who at 
that time took any interest in intellectual pursuits, including 
the Emperor Claudius, prone to curiosity about the occult ori- 
ental learning and magic arts, among the pretenders to which 
many Jews were conspicuous. Such counterfeits of spiritual 
power have always proved an influence most hostile to spirit- 
ual religion; and the Christians had not only to expose the 
cheat, but to clear themselves from the suspicion of trading, 
like the others, upon their spiritual powers. With such an im- 
postor, a magician named Bar-Jesus or Elymas, the Apostles 
were brought into conflict by the proconsul's desire to hear 
them. The simple truth for which the better class of Romans 
were yearning made such an impression on his mind, that Ely- 
mas, like Simon Magus at Samaria, became alarmed for his 
profits, and sought to turn away the proconsul from the faith. 38 
What sophistry he used the narrative does not record, any 
more than Paul condescended to refute it, when he exposed 
its true source in the indignant rebuke : — " O full of all sub- 
tilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of 
all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right 
ways of the Lord ? " These words were not Paul's own, for 
he spoke them filled with the Holy Ghost, and the authority 
of the condemnation was proved by the miracle which sent 
Elymas forth from the presence of the proconsul, blind and 
seeking for any to lead him by the hand. But the eyes of 
Sergius Paulus were opened to receive the spiritual light of 
faith in Christ; and we can not doubt that the example of 
such a convert gave an impulse to the Gospel among the pro- 
vincial Romans. 39 

§ 9. The rebuke of Elymas is introduced by the words, 
" Then Saul, who is also Paul," which naturally give the first 

30 Among the indications of St. 
Luke's classical knowledge, is the ac- 
curacy with which he uses the titles 
of the Eoman provincial governors. 
The proconsuls of the senatorial prov- 
inces, Cyprus, Achaia, and Asia, are 
distinguished by the proper Greek 
word avOvTraTog, (translated deputy in 
the A. V., Acts xiii. 7, xviii. 12, xix. 
38), from the legate of Syria (Luke ii. 
2), and the procurators of Judaea, as 
Pilate, Felix, and Festus (Luke iii. 1 ; 
Acts xxiii. 24, 26, 33, 34, xxiv. ], 10). 
Perhaps it was because the procura- 
tors virtually represented to the Jews 



the full authority of the emperor, that 
he denotes both them and the legate 
by the general term r'lye/xwv (answer- 
ing to the Latin praises and our gov- 
ernor), which he applies even to the 
emperor (Luke iii. 1). Josephus uses 
r'ryefiuv for the prefect of Syria, and 
£7riVpo7roc (literally steward) for the 
procurator of Judaea. 

37 Acts xiii. 7 : avdpi crvv6T<jj. 

38 Acts xiii. 8, where the definite 
article deserves notice, the (Christian) 
faith. Comp. Acts xiv. -22, xv. 9,- 
Rom. iii. 3, iv. 11, etc. 

39 Acts xiii. 12. 



440 



Reception of the Gentiles. 



Chap. XV. 



impression that the Apostle, or others for him, marked an 
epoch in his ministry so important as the conversion of the 
proconsul by adopting his distinguished convert's name. Je- 
rome goes so far as to disparage the surnames which men 
like Africanus won by their deeds of war, in contrast with 
this trophy of Paul's victory over heathenism. But such 
boasting is not after the Apostle's own manner ; and the very 
common occurrence of double names, one Hebrew and one 
Greek or Roman, among the Jews of this age — -Simon Peter, 
Simeon Niger, Barsabas Justus, John Mark — goes far to justify 
the belief that a Hellenistic Jew of Tarsus, whom we know to 
have been free-born, may have been called by both names from 
his infancy. The invariable use in the " Acts " of Saul up to 
this point, and Paul afterward, and the distinct mention 
which St. Luke himself makes of the transition, is accounted 
for by the desire to mark the turning-point between Saul's 
activity among his own countrymen and his new labors as the 
Apostle of the Gentiles. He is never afterward mentioned by 
any other name than Paul, whether in the Acts or in his own 
Epistles, and in the allusion to him by St Peter he is named 
" our beloved brother Paul." 40 

§ 10. The precedence henceforth assigned to Paul over 
Barnabas is marked by the statement, that " Paul and his 
company," setting sail from Paphos, came to Perga in Pam- 
phylia, a city about seven miles up the river Oestrus, which 
falls into the inmost bight of the bay of Attalia. 41 Small ves- 
sels were constantly trading between this port and Paphos ; 
and Paul's course was now directed to the region which ad- 
joined the scene of his former labors in Cilicia, and which 
gave the readiest access to the districts beyond the Taurus — 
Pisidia and Lycaonia — which abounded with Jewish syna- 
gogues. The passage of that mountain chain, long regarded 
as one of the great lines of demarkation between the Grseco- 
Roman and Oriental worlds, 42 marks the epoch at which the 
Gospel overpassed the limits of Semitic civilization. This 
new enterprise was beset with dangers. The highlands of 
Pisidia could only be penetrated by passes, subject to be swept 
by the sudden rise of the mountain torrents, and infested by 



40 2 Pet. ill. 15. See the full dis- 
cussion of the question of the names 
in Conybeare and Howson, vol. i. 
chap. v. 

41 Acts xiii. 13. Perga was cele- 
brated for the worship of Artemis 
(Diana), whose temple stood on a 



hill outside the town. There arc ex- 
tensive remains of Perga at a spot 
called by the Turks Eski-Kdlesi. 

42 For example, it was the boundary 
fixed between the Roman and Seleu- 
cid empires after the defeat of Anti- 
ochus the Great by the Scipios. 



A.D. 4G (?). Desertion of John Mark. 441 

the wildest banditti in the world ; and the Apostles went for- 
ward through " perils of rivers and perils of robbers " only to 
plunge into " perils from, their kindred, perils from the hea- 
then." 43 The prospect disheartened the youthful spirit of 
John Mark, who, " departing from them, returned to Jerusa- 
lem." " The ground on which Paul afterward refused to take 
Mark upon the second missionary journey, even at the cost 
of a quarrel with such a friend as Barnabas — because " he de- 
parted from them from Pamphylia, and w^ent not with them 
to the work " — proves that he regarded Mark's desertion as 
at least a case of grievous instability. 45 But it hardly follows 
that Mark was intent solely upon rest in his home at Jerusa- 
lem. Had mere cowardice been the cause of his withdrawal, 
Barnabas would not so soon have chosen him for another 
journey. His desertion of Paul may have been prompted in 
part by a wish to rejoin Peter and the Apostles engaged in 
preaching in Palestine. There is nothing strange in the char- 
acter of a warm impulsive young man, drawn almost equally 
toward the two great teachers of the faith, Paul and Peter ; 
with the latter of whom he is always connected by the testimo- 
ny of ecclesiastical antiquity. 40 The steadfast kindness of 
Barnabas gave Mark the opportunity of returning to the work 
he had deserted, by taking him as his companion to Cyprus 
after he had separated from Paul ; and it is pleasing to find 
him not only restored to Paul's intimacy during his first im- 
prisonment at Rome, commended to the Church at Colossi, 47 
and acknowledged as his fellow-laborer, 48 but to hear Paul, 
among his last words, desiring that very aid from Mark which 
he had once rejected : — " Take Mark and bring him with thee, 
for he is profitable to me for the ministry" 40 In the interval 
between St. Paul's first and second imprisonments, Mark seems 
to have been brought again, by that journey to the East to 
which Paul alludes as contemplated, into co-operation with 
Peter, with whom we find him at Babylon, and who speaks of 
him affectionately as " my son." 50 Meanwhile his desertion 
must have added to the anxieties under which Paul and Barna- 
bas plunged into the wilds of Pisidia. 

§ 11. Their first halting-place was at Antiocit in Pisidia, 



43 2 Cor. xi. 26. 44 Acts xiii. 13. 

46 Acts xv. 37-39. 

46 We assume, for the present, the 
identity of John Mark with the 
Evangelist. See the Appendix on 
the Lives of the Apostles and Evnu- 
gelists. 

T 2 



47 Col. iv. 10. 

48 Philem. 24. 

49 2 Tim. iv. 11. It is interesting, 
hoth in this and the preceding pas- 
sage, to observe the association of tho 
names of Mark and Luke. 

57 1 Pet. v. 13. 



442 



Reception of the Gentiles. 



Chap. XV. 



founded, like the Syrian Antioch, by Seleucus Nicator, and 
named after his father Antiochus ; a place scarcely second to 
the other for its importance in the history of Gentile Chris- 
tianity. 51 It was here that the first formal declaration was 
made, that the offer of salvation, rejected by the Jews, was 
handed over to the Gentiles ; and here too was first proclaim- 
ed the great Pauline doctrine, in which is summed up the 
essence of Christianity as a saving faith. Like their Master 
at Nazareth, the Apostles went into the Jewish synagogue on 
the Sabbath, and sat down. After the usual reading of the 
Law and the Prophets, they were invited to address the con- 
gregation. Then Paul, who from the beginning of this jour- 
ney appears in the character of the chief speaker, uttered the 
first of those discourses which, whether in the form of ad- 
dresses or epistles, abounding in surpassing eloquence as well 
as powerful reasoning, have ever since formed the great store 
of Christian theology. Resembling Stephen's defense before 
the Sanhedrim in its historical basis, it passes lightly over the 
choice of Israel, their deliverance from Egypt, God's forbear- 
ance with them 52 for forty years in the wilderness, their set- 
tlement in Canaan, their government by the Judges and by 
Saul, — to come to David, the king of God's own choice, of 
whose seed He proclaims Jesus, the Saviour raised up by God 
for Israel according to his promise, after John had first 
preached the baptism of repentance. This word of salvation, 
he plainly tells his brethren — children of the race of Abraham 
and all of them that feared God — was sent to them, since the 
people of Jerusalem and their rulers, ignorant of Him and of 
the voices of the prophets read (as they had just now been 
read) in the synagogues every Sabbath, had fulfilled them in 
condemning him. After alluding to the circumstances of 
Christ's death and burial, in a manner which seems to imply 
that they were generally known to his hearers, Paul, like Peter 
in the house of Cornelius, utters the great apostolic testimony 
to His resurrection, and cites the evidence of his appearances 
to his Apostles, " who are his witnesses to the people." In the 
character of such a witness, Paul proclaims the Gospel prom- 
ised to the fathers, and now fulfilled to their children in the 
raising up of Jesus, the Son of David and of God, of whom it 
had been said, " Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see 



51 Its ruins, which are very con- 
siderable, are at a place called Yalo- 
batch. 

52 Or, according to the LXX text 



of Deut. i. 31 (sTpo(j)0(!>6pT](Tsv for stoo- 
7ro<p6pr}(TEv'), "bare them as is nurse 
carries a child." 



A.D. 4G (?). 



Paul at Antioch in Pisidia. 



443 



corruption," — words which could not apply to David, and 
were only true of Christ. 53 Thus far he has developed those 
historical and prophetical elements of the Gospel which all 
its first preachers alike proclaimed, and, in preaching " the 
forgiveness of sins through this man" he did but repeat the 
Gospel message proclaimed by Christ himself, and by Peter 
on the day of Pentecost. But this is not all. For the first 
time does a preacher of the Gospel declare its transcendent 
excellence and adaptation to the great necessity of our fallen 
race, in that it gives an answer to the question, which had so 
long agitated and tormented both Jew and Gentile : — How 
can a man be just with God? To give that answer, to prove 
its reasonableness alike from the Jewish and Gentile point of 
view, and to maintain it against all the objections of legal 
righteousness and self-sufficient philosophy — which made the 
doctrine a stumbling-block to the Jew and foolishness to the 
Greek — such was the great function of the converted Phari- 
see. The great motto of his sect was Righteousness — puri- 
ty, integrity, and perfect obedience to God's holy law — and 
the first great truth uttered by his new Master was — " Thus 
it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness ■." But how could 
this be when all the world was wrong : sinful and corrupt to 
the very core : lying under the sentence pronounced by God 
himself: — " There is none righteous: no, not one?" In the 
synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, Paul gave forth the text, of 
which the great arguments of his Epistles are the develop- 
ment : — the doctrine distinctively called Pauline, from its 
great defender, but founded, like all other Christian truth, on 
ancient prophecy, 54 and common to all sound Christian teach- 
ing — the articidum stantis aut labentis ecclesiw — that justifi- 
cation by faith in Christ which can not be found in the lav) of 
Moses, much less in any other law of righteousness by man's 
own strength — " And. from all {sins) from which ye could not 



53 It may be worth while here to 
correct the mistranslation in a pas- 
sage which is continually quoted as if 
service to one's own generation were 
something. nobler than serving God. 
It should be: "For David having in 
his own generation " (denoting the 
limit of that service which ceased with 
his death) "served the will of God, 
fell on sleep." 

84 Is. liii. 11 : "By his knowledge 
shall my righteous servant justify 
many; for he shall bear their iniqui- 



ties." Compare Paul's argument that 
Abraham was justified by faith (Rom. 
iv.) and his examples of justifying 
faith under the Old Covenant (Heb. 
xi.). And to these may be added St. 
James's illustrations of justification 
by works (Jam. ii.). For the argu- 
ments of the two Apostles are antag- 
onistic, not to one another, but to 
the two phases of the self-righteous 
and unfruitful Pharisaic doctrine of 
justification. 



444 Reception of trie Gentiles. Chap. XV 

be justified by the law of Moses, by Him every one who be- 
lieves is justified." 55 Well might he who had to proclaim 
a truth so strange to the self-righteousness and worldly wis- 
dom of his hearers, conclude by applying to them the words 
spoken by God through the prophets, — " For I work a work 
in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though 
a man declare it unto you ;" 56 while, with a prophetic knowl- 
edge of the course that the Jews in general would take, he 
repeats the warning : " Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and 
perish." At first, however, a more promising impression was 
produced. The Jews &7 as they departed from the synagogue 
— filled, it would seem, with wonder at the novelty of the 
doctrine — asked that these words might be spoken to them 
again, either on the next Sabbath or in the interval ; 58 and in 
that interval the Apostles found ample occupation in speaking 
to the Jews and religious proselytes who followed them, and 
persuading them to continue in the grace of God. 

§ 12. Such was the fruit of these continued labors, that on 
the following Sabbath almost all the people of the little town 
flocked to the synagogue to hear the Word of God. But 
when the Jews saw the Gentiles coming to the same source 
of religious light as themselves — nay, more, when they who 
prided themselves on legal righteousness heard sinners of the 
Gentiles invited to receive through simple faith in Christ a 
justification which the Law could not give, their envy was 
roused, and " they contradicted the things spoken by Paul, 
contradicting and blaspheming." This sudden outburst of 
hostility, on the part of those who had been so anxious to hear 
more of these very truths, reveals the whole spirit of Jewish 
and Judaizing enmity to the Gospel^ — proud exclusiveness re- 
volted by the universal offer of the privileges of God's king- 
dom, self-righteousness humiliated by so different a doctrine 

53 Acts xiii. 38, 39. We supply The application will be seen more 
the word "sins" from the antecedent clearly by quoting the latter passage 
afiapnCJv, and restore the order, by j in full: "Therefore, behold, I will 
inverting which our translators have j proceed to do a marvelous work and 
marred the climax. Another sort of : a wonder : for the wisdom of their wise 
climax, that of rationalistic absurdity, | men shall perish, and the understanding 
is attained by Baur ; who says that j of their prudent men shall be hid. " 
these words are "evidently foisted , Comp. 1 Cor. i. 19. 
in, to prevent the speech appearing! 57 The word "Gentiles" {ra lQvr\) is 
too Petrine, and to give it a slightly j wanting in the best MSS. 
Pauline air." The passage is worth i 5H Acts xiii. 42 : tic. to psraZv cra/3- 
quoting, for the admission of the bar- \ fiarov is the more capable of the latter 
mony of the whole discourse with the ; meaning, inasmuch as the Jews were 
teaching of Peter. ! accustomed to meet in the synagogues 

b0 Hab. i. 5 : comp. Is. xxix. 14. '' on the Monday and Thursday. 



A.D. 4G(?). 



Persecution at Iconium. 



445 



of justification. Paul seems at once to have perceived the in- 
veterate character of this hostility, and to have learned the 
full meaning of his call — not only to preach the Gospel both 
to Jews and Gentiles, but to preach to the Gentiles the Gos- 
pel rejected by the Jews. Nor was Barnabas behind his col- 
league in conceiving and acting upon this conviction : indeed, 
the joint mention of the two, whereas Paul alone has been the 
speaker up to this point, suggests that they were both moved 
by a direct inspiration to that degree of " boldness," which 
w^as needed for Jews addressing Jews to say, " It was neces- 
sary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to 
you ; but, seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves 
unworthy of eternal life, lo, we tukst to the Gextiles," — 
a course which they justify by the same prophecy which was 
quoted by the aged Simeon at Christ's first appearance in the 
Temple. 59 The announcement caused great joy among the 
Gentiles, " and as many as were ordained to eternal life be- 
lieved : and the word of the Lord was published throughout 
all the region." 60 This success raised the anger of the Jews 
to the highest pitch; and then began the persecution which 
Paul had now to suffer from them at every step. In these 
foreign countries, it is not the Cross or Nazareth that is most 
immediately repulsive to the Jews : it is the wound given to 
Jewish importance in the association of Gentiles with Jews 
as the receivers of the good tidings. If the Gentiles had been 
asked to become Jews, no offense would have been taken. 
The Jewish proselytes, among whom were many women of 
distinction and the chief men of the city, seem to have 
grudged the admission of the Gentiles except by the same 
gate ; and they were easily stirred up to drive Paul and Bar- 
nabas out of their bounds. So they, shaking off the dust of 
their feet against them, as Jesus had commanded, 61 went on 
to IcOnium, which was situated at the western limit of Lyca- 
onia. But the persecution which expelled them failed to de- 
stroy the Church which they had planted at Antioch : " and 
the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost." 63 
These events at Antioch are evidently related thus fully in the 
Acts as a leading example of the way in which the Gospel was 
rejected by the Jews and received by the Gentiles in many 
other cities, and the discourse of Paul furnishes one type, as 
that at Athens gives another, of his mode of addressing audi- 
ences of various kinds. 



69 Is. xiii. 6, xlix. 6 : comp. Luke 
ii. 32. 

60 Aets xiii. 44-49. 



ix. 5. 



Matt. x. 14; Mark vi. 11; Luko 
Acts xiii. 50-52. 



446 



Reception of the Gentiles. 



Chap. XV. 



§ 13. At Iconium, 63 as at Antioch,the Apostles began their 
work by preaching in the synagogue, and gained many con- 
verts both among the Jews and Gentiles. Here too the un- 
believing Jews raised a persecution, but by the new mode of 
stirring up disaffection among the Gentiles. Still the Apos- 
tles held their ground for a long time, and their testimony 
was confirmed by many miracles. At length the whole city 
was divided into two factions ; and the hostile Gentiles con- 
spired with their Jewish instigators to raise a riot and stone 
the Apostles. Warned of the plot, they fled to the eastern 
and wilder part of Lycaonia, where there were no Jewish set- 
tlements, and but little Greek civilization ; and they preached 
the Gospel in the cities of Lystra and Derbe. 64 

Here their mission was attested by a miracle, the very coun- 
terpart of the first that had been wrought by Peter and John 
at Jerusalem — the cure of a cripple at Lystra. 05 The simple 
natives ascribed the work to a present deity, and exclaimed, 
in the rude dialect of Lycaonia, " The gods are come down to 
us in the likeness of men." Their choice of Barnabas for 
Jove seems to show that " the Son of Exhortation " was mark- 
ed by a calm dignity suited to his character, and that Paul 
was — as he himself says — " in bodily presence weak ;" but, as 
he was the chief speaker, they took him for Hermes (Mercury), 
the interpreter and messenger of the gods. Their attempt to 
offer sacrifice to the Apostles called forth a discourse, which 
may be regarded as a type of those first addressed to mere 
heathens. Ignorant of the Jewish prophecies, and strangers 
to the covenants of promise, they acknowledged that simple 
truth of dependence on a Supreme Being which no race of 
mankind seems altogether to have lost ; and the Apostles, 
after earnestly avowing themselves to be but men like them, 



63 Iconium, now called Konieh, was 
practically the capital of Lycaonia; 
though Xenophon (Anab. i. 2, § 19) 
terms it the most easterly town of 
Phrygia. In the Middle Ages it be- 
came a place of great consequence, 
as the capital of the Seljukian sultans. 
Hence the remains of Saracenic 
architecture, which are conspicuous 
here, and which are described by 
many travelers. 

04 Acts xiv. i. 7. Lystra was in 
the heart of the country, and Derbe 
further to the east, not far from the 
chief pass which leads up through 
Taurus, from Cilicia and the coast, I 



to the central table-land. The exact 
site of Derbe is uncertain. Lystra 
is identified with the ruins Bin-bir- 
Killsseh, at the base of a conical 
mountain of volcanic structure, 
named the Karadagh. The current 
legend of Jupiter and Mercury hav- 
ing visited Lycaon in disguise (Ovid. 
Met. i. 163), helps to account for tho 
identification of the Apostles with 
those deities. 

65 Acts xiv. 8, 10. The parallel be- 
comes closer if we insert, with Lach- 
mann, the words, " I say unto thee, 
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ," 
before "stand upright on thy feet.* 



A.D. 47 (?). 



The Judaizers at Antioch. 



44^ 



call upon them to turn from these vanities of idol-worship, 
" unto the living God, which made heaven and earth and the 
sea, and all things that are therein." In place of those ar- 
guments from Scripture which they had used with the Jews, 
they appeal to his gifts of " rain from heaven, and fruitful 
seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness," and all the 
other goodness whereby he left himself not without a witness, 
even while he suffered the nations to walk in their own ways J 
The argument thus briefly stated at Lystra is the same which 
Paul afterward addressed to the Athenians, and which he 
works up in the opening of the Epistle to the Romans as the 
basis of the responsibility of the heathen. 60 We see presently 
that this discourse made converts ; but the people in general 
were disappointed at the repulse of the honors they had offer- 
ed. The easy step from blind worship to rabid persecution 
was soon taken, at the instigation of certain Jews who came 
from Antioch and Iconium. Paul was stoned and dragged 
out of the city for dead ; but, as the new disciples stood round 
him, he revived and returned into the city, whence he and 
Barnabas departed the next day for Derbe, and there they 
gained many disciples. 07 

§ 14. This was the furthest point of the present journey; 
and here they seem to have rested for some time after the 
dangers they had so narrowly escaped. But, prepared to face 
those dangers again for the sake of the new converts, they re- 
traced their route through Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, con- 
firming the souls of the disciples, and adding to the exhorta- 
tion to continue in the faith the warning pointed by their own 
experience — "That we must through much tribulation enter 
into the kingdom of God." Thus they returned to Perga ; 
and then slightly varied their former route by proceeding to 
the port of Attalia, where they embarked for Antioch. 08 

§ 15. This return journey through Pisidia and Pamphylia 
is memorable for the first record of the appointment of per- 
manent officers, here called Elders, for the teaching and 
guidance, the comfort and government of the churches. We 
have already had an incidental mention of such officers, even 
in the churches of Judcea, 00 which enjoyed the ministry of the 



,-< 



co Acts xiv. 13-18 : comp. xvii. 23- 
31 ; Eom. i. 

67 Acts xiv. 19-21. 

C8 Acts xiv. 21-26. 

co Acts xi. 30 ; where we nave 
mention of the elders of the Church 
of Jerusalem. Elder is the transla- 



tion of the equivalent word, which 
we still preserve in its Greek form of 
presbyter, and which is contracted, 
through the old French forms prester 
and prestre, into priest. It is the more 
important to remember this etymol- 
ogy, as priest is commonly used in 



448 Reception of the Gentiles. Char XV. 

Apostles and of the prophets and teachers who had been 
the associates of the Apostles. Much more did the newly- 
planted churches which Paul and Barnabas were leaving to 
themselves — severed from those of Judaea and Syria by the 
Taurus and another language — need to have the means of 
edification and order complete within themselves; and so 
they ordained them Elders in every church, and commend- 
ed them to the Lord, with the prayer and fasting which form 
a perpetual model for every appointment of Christian min- 
isters. 70 

§ 16. The report of this First Missionary Journey, made 
to the assembled Church of Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, 
furnished a decisive proof that the prophetic intimations, in 
consequence of which they were sent forth, were fulfilled ; and 
that " God had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles." 
Paul and Barnabas had already for some time returned to 
their ordinary labors at Antioch, 71 when the prospects of the 
Gentile converts were imperiled by that Judaizing spirit, to 
which may be traced all the heresies that began to trouble the 
Church even in the Apostolic age. Certain men which came 
down from Judaea taught the brethren — " Except ye be cir- 
cumcised after the manner of Moses, ye can not be saved." 
Paul was supported by Barnabas in that vigorous opposition 
to this attempt to conjure back the genius of Christianity 
within the cast-off shell of Judaism, which is now so familiar 
to us in his Epistles. After no small dissension and disputa- 
tion, the Church decided that Paul and Barnabas, with other 
brethren, should go up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and Eld- 
ers about this question. As they traveled by land through 
Phoenicia and Samaria, they caused great joy to the brethren 
in those regions by declaring the conversion of the Gentiles ; 
nor were they less cordially received, at least in the first 



secular literature as the translation | 70 Acts xiv. 23. 
of hpevg. The word presbyterian does j 71 Acts xiv. 27, 28. The xpovov ovk 
not signify that the religious denomi- oXiyov of this passage is interpreted 
nation described by it have any ex- | by Conybcare and Howson of the 
elusive possession of presbyters or j year 49-50, by Mr. Lewin of the 
elders, but that they have their own | whole year 47, with parts of 46 and 
distinctive views of the position and j 48. Mr. Lcwin himself remarks that 
functions of such officers. It should ; no long interval could have elapsed 



also be observed that the Greek lan- 
guage discriminates, even more care- 
fully than the English, between the 
official use of these terms and the em- 
ployment of words of the same deriva- 
tion in the sense of age. 



between the return of Paul and Bar- 
nabas to Antioch and their jour- 
ney to Jerusalem, inasmuch as they 
proclaimed by the way the conver- 
sion of the Gentiles as recent intelli- 
gence. 



A.D. 48 or 50. Paid and Barnabas at Jerusalem. 



449 



instance, by the Church at Jerusalem, with the Apostles and 
Elders. 72 

§ 1 7. This brings us into contact with one of the difficulties 
in St. Paul's history. In the Epistle to the Galaiians 73 he 
gives an account of a visit that he paid to Jerusalem, fourteen 
years after that first visit which took place three years from 
his conversion. 7311 What he tells us of this visit seems incon- 
sistent with any of those recorded in the Acts, save that now 
before us ; and, as Paley holds, it is clear that the visit of 
Gal. ii. is either that of Acts xv. or that it is not mentioned in 
the Acts at all. From Gal. ii. it appears that the visit there 
described was made after Paul's great success among the 
heathen, and not after the decision of the Church recorded in 
Acts xv., so that the only time left for the visit is the interval 
during which Luke tells us that Paul and Barnabas abode at 
Antioch a long time with the disciples. 74 Of course this phrase 
does not exclude a private journey to Jerusalem; but we 
must not supply such an event without positive evidence. 
Nay, more, the occasion named in the Epistle can scarcely 
have arisen so soon, for no cause of the doubt " lest by any 
means he should run or had run in vain " is suggested, excej:>t 
through that .opposition of the Judaizers which was the im- 
mediate cause of the visit related in Acts xv. The objection, 
that no mention is made in the Galatians of the visit mention- 
ed in Acts xi. and xii., disappears at once, when we observe 
that Paul is writing of his communications w^ith the Apostles 
in relation to his ministry among the Gentiles. And this con- 
sideration supplies so strong a proof of the one occasion on 
which alone the visit could have taken place, that the other 
objections are best answered by interweaving the two narra- 
tives. 75 

The clear judgment concerning the course they had pur- 
sued, which had made Paul and Barnabas firm in their resist- 
ance to the Judaizers, did not scorn confirmation by the 
judgment of the other Apostles and of the Church. That 
conscientious self-searching which kept Paul alive, in the full 
career of his success, to the fear lest after preaching to others 
he might himself be a castaway, led him now to face the ques- 
tion raised by the Judaizers, whether he had been misguided 
in his recent course or in its purposed resumption. Side by 
side with the resolution of the Church of Antioch, to seek 



72 Acts xr. 1-4. 73 Gal. ii. 1-10. 
73 b Gal. ii. 18. 74 Acts xiv. 28. 
75 The opinion of Mr.Lewin, identi- 
fying this journey with that which Paul 



paid to Jerusalem at the close of his 
Second Circuit, in a.d. 53' or 54, will 
be best noticed when we come to that 
point in the narrative. 



450 



Reception of the Gentiles. 



Chap. XV. 



light from their brethren at Jerusalem, was a divine impulse 
prompting Paul himself to confer with his brother Apostles. 
He " went up by revelation," as well as deputed by the 
Church. 76 The private conferences which he himself men- 
tions are not only thus perfectly consistent with the public 
proceedings recorded in the Acts, but the narrative of the lat- 
ter leaves room for the former in the interval between the 
first reception of Paul and Barnabas and the beginning of 
the Pharisaic opposition. 77 Paul himself says that he commu- 
nicated to them the Gospel which he preached among the 
Gentiles — referring doubtless to the report which Luke men- 
tions as first made by Paul and Barnabas to the whole 
Church 7S — and then adds, " but separately to those of reputa- 
tion," 79 and especially to James, Peter and John. The result 
of these private conferences is in perfect accordance with the 
public debate and decision related by St. Luke. The reputed 
"pillars" of the Church "added nothing to Paul" — no new 
truth for him and his converts to learn, no new law for them 
to observe. As if to bring the chief question to a practical 
issue, Paul and Barnabas had taken with them Titus, who, 
though a Greek, was not required to be circumcised. 80 The 
Apostles at Jerusalem cordially recognized what God himself 
had made clear, that " the Gospel of theun circumcision " had 
been committed to Paul, like " the Gospel of the circumcision " 
to Peter, and that the one could show miracles as convincing 
as the other; and they gave Paul and Barnabas the right 
hands of fellowship, as the pledge of the solemn compact, 
that these two should go to the Gentiles and they themselves 
to the Jews. St. Paul adds one point which proves that, amid 
these questions of doctrine and ritual, all the Apostles were 
agreed on the supreme importance of the fruit of practical 
beneficence in Christianity : — " Only they would that we 
should remember the poor ; the same which I also was for- 
ward to do." 81 

§ 18. The public discussion of the great question by the 
whole Church was brought on by " certain of the sect of the 
Pharisees who believed." e2 The strong language of Paul im- 
plies that, besides Christians who had not yet overcome their 
Jewish prejudices, some at least of these opponents were Jews 
who had made a false profession, either to find grounds of 



78 Gal. ii. 2. 

77 Acts xv. 4, 5. 78 Acts xv. 4. 

79 Gal. ii. 2 : rolg doKovai, the same 
phrase which our translators have 
unfortunately rendered differently in 



v. 6, and the recurrence of which in 
v. 9 marks its reference to James, 
Peter and John. 

80 Gal. ii. 3. 81 Gal. ii. G-10. 

82 Acts xv. 5. 



A.D. 48 or 50. Decision of the Church. 451 

accusation against the Christians or to lead them back by an- 
other route to Judaism. 83 Joining in the mutual congratula- 
tions of the brethren on the conversion of the Gentiles, they 
yet contended that such converts could, only be received into 
the Church through the door of Judaism, — " It was needful 
to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of 
Moses." 8i The question thus raised involved the whole issue 
of the adaptation of Christianity to the world — to man as man 
in every state. 

It is to be observed that the Apostles did not exercise the 
power, which they might doubtless have assumed as involved 
in their mission, of legislating on the matter. They came to- 
gether with the Elders : the whole body of the Church 85 at 
Jerusalem were not only present with one accord, but took 
part in the decision ; and it was embodied in a letter drawn 
up in the name of the Apostles, and Elders, and brethren. 80 
It was not till after much discussion among those who are not 
named, that Peter stood up to remind the brethren that the 
principle at issue had been already settled by his mission to 
Cornelius, when God gave the same witness of the Holy Ghost 
to the believing Gentiles that he had given to the believing 
Jews. Nay, more, he shows the reason of this in the essential 
character of the new dispensation, that it relates to man's in- 
ner life ; and so " God, which knoweth the hearts" passing 
over what was external in the relations of these converts to 
the Mosaic rites, " purified their hearts through faith." And 
as they believed that salvation came to both Jew and Gentile 
alike through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, it was a 
mere tempting of God to add a yoke which even those lawful- 
ly subjected to it had never been able to bear. 87 Then, amid 
the silent attention of the whole multitude, Paul and Barnabas 
related the facts to which Peter had appealed, " declaring what 
miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles 
by them." 88 James, the only other Apostle who is reported 
as speaking, — the Apostle who was most intimately connected 
with the Church of Jerusalem, and who had the greatest 
weight with the Jewish party, — sums up the discussion. 
With incomparable simplicity and wisdom he binds up the 
testimony of recent facts with the testimony of ancient proph- 
ecy, and gives a practical judgment upon the question. 89 



83 Gal. ii. 4: "Because of false 
brethren unawares brought in, who 
came in privily to spy out our liberty 
which we have in Christ Jesus, that 
they might bring us into bondage." 



84 Acts xv. 5. 

85 7rav to TrXrjQog. 

86 Acts xv. 6, 12, 22, 23, 25. 

87 Acts xv. 7-11. eH Acts xv. 12. 
89 Acts xv. 13-21. 



452 Reception of the Gentiles. Chap. XV. 

§ 19. His judgment was adopted by the Apostles and Eld- 
ers and brethren. They wrote to the Gentiles in Antioch 
and Syria and Cilicia, disavowing the men who, they say, 
" going out from us, troubled you with words " (or disputa* 
tions), and bearing emphatic testimony to Paul and Barnabas, 
as the " beloved, who have hazarded their lives for the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." The judgment which they then pro- 
nounce they declare to be that of the Holy Ghost, as well as 
their own — referring doubtless to some sign vouchsafed to 
the assembly. That judgment was, that no further burden 
should be laid upon the Gentile converts, " except these, 
which must of necessity be borne " — burdens only to those 
who had been used to the polluting rites of heathenism — 
" that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, 
and from things strangled, and from fornication." 90 The in- 
junction that the Gentiles should abstain from pollutions of 
idols and from fornication explained itself: the abstinence 
from things strangled and from blood is desired as a conces- 
sion to the customs of the Jews who were to be found in every 
city, and for whom it was still right, when they had believed 
in Jesus Christ, to observe the Law. 

By this decision, the Apostles and Church at Jerusalem — 
the natural guardians of whatever it might have been right to 
preserve in the ancient dispensation — gave their solemn and 
final approval to that version of the Gospel which Paul had 
preached by the revelation given to him. The emancipation 
of the Gentile converts from Jewish rites involved far more 
than their personal liberty. It abolished that separation of 
the race of Israel from the other nations, of which circumcis- 
ion was the sign and seal ; and, in place of the divine favor of 
which they boasted as the sons of Abraham, acceptance with 
God was offered to Jew and Gentile in common through the 
new spiritual bond of faith in Christ. And, as the speech of 
St. Peter declares, this view of the Gospel was of no less vital 
moment to the Jew than to the Gentile. If the Jewish be- 
lievers were thrown back on the Jewish law, and gave up the 
free and absolute grace of God, the Law became a mere bur- 
den, just as heavy to the Jew as it would be to the Gentile. 
The only hope for the Jew was in a Saviour who must be the 
Saviour of mankind. Thus the decision of the Jewish 
Church agrees with the teaching of St. Paul's Epistles ; and 
the agreement between him and the other Apostles — that he 

90 Acts xv. 22-29. These are sometimes called the Apostolic Precepts, as 
a parallel to the Noachic Precepts of Gen. ix. 4-6. 



A P. 48 or 50. Paul reproves Peter. 455 

should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision — as- 
suredly did not imply that different versions of the Gospel 
were to be preached to the Gentiles and the Jews. And that 
this one doctrine of a common faith in Jesus Christ might 
prove to be the seed of union in a holy life, the richer Gentiles 
were admonished to remember their poorer brethren in Pales- 
tine. 91 How ready they were to discharge this duty, had al- 
ready been shown in the former mission of Paul to Jerusa« 
lem ; and his Epistles bear witness to his constancy in urg- 
ing its systematic performance. 

§ 20. But questions, which have been once for all settled in 
principle, are ever liable to be reopened in practice, not only 
by the opposition of malcontents, but by the infirmities of 
sincere men ; and, besides the life-long contest which Paul 
had to maintain with the Judaizers, there was one memorable 
occasion on which he was compelled to reprove Peter himself 
for his compliance with the Judaizing spirit. On a visit to 
Antioch, which seems to have occurred not long after these 
events, Peter proved his full adoption of the new law of liber- 
ty by eating with the Gentiles, till certain Jewish Christians 
" came from James ;" when, for fear of them, he withdrew 
from all such intercourse. The other Jews, to use the strong 
phrase of Paul, " played the hypocrite with him," and even 
Barnabas was carried away with the rest. St. Paul, regard- 
ing their conduct as an open departure from " walking up- 
rightly according to the truth of the Gospel," " withstood Pe- 
ter to the face, because he was to be blamed," and said to him 
before them all, " If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner 
of the Gentiles and not of the Jews, why compellest thou the 
Gentiles to Judaize ?" ° 2 This was no opposition of Pauline 
to Petrine views ; it Avas a faithful rebuke of blamable moral 
weakness. It has been well observed that the argument of 
St. Paul would have lost its force if St. Peter had been really 
of opinion that the law was obligatory on Gentile converts. 
" The point of St. Paul's rebuke is plainly this — that, in sanc^ 
turning the Jewish feeling which regarded eating with the 
Gentiles as an unclean thing, St. Peter was untrue to his prin- 
ciples, was acting hypocritically and from fear." 93 The result 
shows a magnanimity only to be ascribed to " a double por- 
tion " of the Holy Spirit resting on the Church as well as on 
them. 

And as, happily, no dispute had yet arisen between the 
churches, so there is no ground for calling the assembly at 

91 Gal. ii. 10. 92 GaL ii. 11=14. 93 Professor Liglitfoot, On the Galatians. 



466 Reception of the Gentiles. Chap. XV. 

Jerusalem the First General Council. It was no meeting of 
delegates from all the churches, for even those sent from An- 
tioch went rather to consult the sister church, and especially 
the Apostles, than to represent the views of their own church ; 
and the divine basis on which the decision is placed takes it 
quite out of the category of synodical sentences, which decide, 
without extinguishing, a grave difference of opinion, by the 
mere voice of a majority. If in any sense the First Council of 
the Church, it was the last which had a right to say, " It 
seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." 

As a personal confirmation of their letter, the Church of 
Jerusalem sent back, with Paul and Barnabas, Judas Barsa- 
bas and Silas, 94 " chief men among their brethren," who, be- 
ing prophets, added their exhortations and encouragement to 
the joy and consolation which the letter caused. When their 
ministry was fulfilled, Judas returned to Jerusalem; but Silas 
continued some time at Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas 
also resumed their labors. To complete this view as the ex- 
tension of the Gospel to the Gentile world, we shall soon see 
that about this time it reached Rome itself. 

B4 This u the Greek abbreviated form of the Latin name Silvanus. 




Thessalonica. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

st. paul's second, or great missionary journey, and the 
entrance of the gospel into europe. a.d. 49 or 51-53 

OR 54. 

§ 1. Time and extent of the Second Missionary Journey — Quarrel of Paul 
and Barnabas — Paul accompanied by Silas. § 2. Visit to Syria, Cili- 
cia, and Lycaonia — Timothy at Lystra — His ordination and circum- 
cision — He goes forth with Paul and Silas. § 3. Journey through 
Phrygia and Galatia — Illness of Paul — His reception by the Galatians 
— The Churches of Galatia. § 4. Preaching in Bithynia and Asia di- 
vinely forbidden — St. Paul at Troas — Vision of the man of Macedonia 
— Luke joins the apostolic band. § 5. Voyage to Macedonia — Neapo- 
lis — Philippi : its outer market and its Jewish oratory — Conversion of 
Lydia. § 6. The possessed damsel healed by Paul — Paul and Silas 
scourged and imprisoned — Conversion of the jailer — " Civis Romanus 
sum " — Release and departure of Paul and Silas — The Church of the 
Philippians. § 7. Thessalonica, the Boman capital of Macedonia — 
Paul in the Synagogue — Riot stirred up by the Jews — Departure of 
Paul and Silas — Teaching of St. Paul at Thessalonica. § 8. Serosa — 
Noble-mindedness of the Jews thei'e — Tumult excited by Jews from 
Thessalonica — Paul leaves Bercea, and sails to Athens. § 9. He waits 
for Silas and Timotheus— His emotions at the sight of the city — His 
TT 



458 St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 

disputes with the Jews and Greeks in the Synagogue and the Agora- 
Character of the Athenians — Paul encountered by the Stoics and 
Epicureans. § 10. His Discourse at the Areopagus — Paul's revelation 
of the Unknown God, the Universal Father— Rebuke of idolatry — 
Preaching of repentance and judgment by Him whom God hath raised 
— Interruption of the discourse, and departure of St. Paul — Athenian 
converts. § 11. Corinth : its importance in the history of Paul — The 
old Greek city and the new Roman colony — Its population of Greeks, 
Romans and Jews. § 12. Paul lives at Corinth with Aquila and 
Priscilla, working with his own hands — His reasons for this course. 
§ 13. Paul visits the Synagogue — Arrival of Silas and Timothy : Paul 
" constrained by the word " — His plain proclamation of Christ cru- 
cified — Rejected by the Jews, he turns to the Greeks — The Epistles 
to the Thessalonians written from Corinth — Paul's autograph saluta- 
tion, to prove his letters genuine, and to add emphasis to truth. § 14. 
Gallio proconsul of Achaia — Tumult of the Jews' against Paul — 
Gallio's impartial toleration. § 15. Paul's vow at Cenchreae, before 
sailing with Aquila and Priscilla — His voyage to Ephesus, and visit 
to the Synagogue — Aquila and Priscilla remain at Ephesus. § 16. 
Paul lands at Cassarea, and goes up to Jerusalem — Connection of this 
visit with his future work — Contest with Judaizing teachers, and relief 
of Jewish Christians— Paul returns to Antioch : end of his Second Mis- 
sionary Journey — Death of Claudius, and accession of Nero. 

§ 1. The Second Missionary Journey of St. Paul, besides 
its wide extent and long duration, is memorable for the in- 
troduction of Christianity into Europe ; though the Apostle's 
labors were still confined to that eastern division of the Ro- 
man Empire which was marked by the Adriatic. The jour- 
ney extended over the space of three or four years, of which 
eighteen months were spent at Corinth. Beginning at Anti- 
och, it embraced Cilicia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, Galatia, Mysia 
and the Troad ; and, in Europe, Macedonia, Athens and 
Corinth ; whence Paul crossed the iEgean to Ephesus, and 
thence sailed to Caesarea, and so, after a hasty visit to Jerusa- 
lem, returned to Antioch. 1 Its beginning was " some days " 
after the so-called Council at Jerusalem, but that the interval 
could not have been very long is proved by the fact that upon 
this journey Paul delivered the decrees to the churches of 
Syria and Cilicia, to whom they were addressed. Dr. How- 
son places the commencement of the circuit in a.d. 51, Mr. 
Lewin in a.d. 49, and it ended, according to the latter, in the 
autumn of a.d. 53, according to the former in the summer of 
a.d. 54. 

This great enterprise began with no parade of promises or 
preparation, but in the natural proposal of Paul to Barnabas 

1 Acts xv. 36-xviii. 24. In the latter passage, the usual faulty arrange- 
ment of chapters slurs over the division between the second and third 
journeys. 






A.D. 49 or 51. Syria, Cilicia, and Lycaonia. 459 

that they should revisit the brethren in all the cities where 
they had preached the Gospel, and inquire after their wel- 
fare. 2 But it was probably not without some prophetic view 
of the great trials of courage and steadfastness which awaited 
him, that he refused the proposal of Barnabas to take John 
Mark again with them. The plain language of St. Luke 
implies a sharp personal quarrel, 3 embittered perhaps on the 
side of Barnabas by the rebuke he had lately shared with 
Peter. But the providence of God overruled human infirmi-= 
ties, and the result of the separation of the former comrades 
was that two apostolic missions went forth instead of one. 
Barnabas, with Mark, sailed as before to Cyprus, his native 
island ; 4 and he is not again mentioned in the Acts. In the 
Epistles, however, Paul not only refers to his old comrade 
with affection and respect, 5 but in a later passage he seems 
to imply that Barnabas was still laboring among the Gentiles, 
maintained, like himself, by the work of his own hands. 
Paul found a new companion in Silas, whom we have seen 
transferred from Jerusalem to Antioch ; and it was not long 
before the little band was increased by the most congenial 
fellowship of Timothy. Hence the laborers in this work are 
described by the Apostle himself by the formula, — " Paul and 
Silvanus and Timotheus." 7 Luke, as is clearly shown by the 
sudden transition of liis narrative to the first person and back 
again to the third, joined Paul's company at Alexandria Troas, 
but was left behind at Philippi, and he does not appear again 
in this journey. 8 

§ 2. Commended by the brethren to the grace of God, Paul 
and Silas first visited the churches of Syria and Cilicia; 
probably those which the Apostle had planted soon after his 
conversion. 9 The statement that Paul confirmed these church- 
es seems to have a particular reference to the recent Judaist- 
ical controversy ; for " the decrees decided upon by the 
Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem," which we presently find 
Paul and Silas enjoining upon the brethren in every city that 
they visited, were addressed to the Gentiles in Syria and 
Cilicia.™ And here Silas would be able to discharge the 
same office for which he had first been sent to Antioch, as a 
personal witness to the decision of the Church at Jerusalem. 

Crossing the Taurus by one of the more eastern passes — - 



2 Acts xv. 36. 3 Trapo%v«f.i6s. I * 1 Thess. i. 1 ; 2 Thess. i. 1. 

4 Acts xv. 37-39. 8 Acts xvi. 10, xvii. 1.. 

5 Gal. ii. ] , 9, 13. J. 9 Acts xv. 40, 41 : comp. Gal. i. 21. 
8 1 Cor. ix.G. ■ l0 Acts xvi. 4 : comp. xv. 23. 



460 



St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVL 



probably the usual route through the Cilician Gates — Paul 
traversed his old ground in Lycaonia, but in the reverse order, 
by Derbe, Lystra and Iconium. 11 The general statement, 
that "the churches were established in the faith, and in- 
creased (or abounded) in number daily," is varied by one 
most interesting episode. At Lystra, Paul found a disciple 
named Timotheus, the offspring of one of those mixed mar- 
riages which had become common in this later period of 
Jewish history. His father was a Greek, that is, of heathen 
origin, and, if a proselyte at all (which is nowhere stated), 
certainly not more than a proselyte of the gate. 12 His moth- 
er belonged to that class of devout Jewish women who have 
already been mentioned in the account of Paul's first journey 
through these parts. From the very cursory notice of his 
father, without any mention of his name, it has been inferred 
that Timothy was left in infancy to the sole care of his mother 
Eunice and his grandmother Lois, who taught him from a 
child to know the Holy Scriptures. 12 It was from them also 
that the youth derived his first impressions of Christian truth ; 
for St. Paul seems clearly to describe the order in which the 
family embraced it, when he calls to remembrance the un- 
feigned faith " which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, 
and thy mother Eunice ; and, I am persuaded, in thee also." 14 
The absence of any synagogue at Lystra has suggested the 
picture of these devout women going forth to their daily 
worship at some oratory, like that by the river at Philippi, 15 
where, like Lydia, their hearts, prepared by the Jewish Script- 
ures, were opened to receive the teaching of Paul when he 
visited the city on his first journey. To the lessons which 
they gave Timothy in the new faith, was added the deep im- 



11 Acts xvi. 1, 2. The visit to Ico- 
nium — which follows almost of neces- 
sity from the route chosen — is clearly 
implied in v. 2. With regard to 
Timothy's connection with these 
places, there are various opinions. 
The seeming vagueness of Acts xvi. 
1 is removed by referring the IkeI to 
the immediate antecedent Avarpav; 
and that this was Timothy's home is 
confirmed by the mention of Lystra, 
without Derbe, in v. 2, and in 2 Tim. 
iii. 11. The reputation which Tim- 
othy enjoyed at Iconium, as well as 
Lystra (v. 2), shows the intercoui'se 
which we might have expected be- 
tween the newly-planted churches in 



j Lycaonia. From the language of v. 
3, immediately after the mention of 
Iconium — where the Jews were nu- 
merous, while there seems to have 
been no synagogue at Lystra — it has 
been inferred that the circumcision 
of Timothy took place at Iconium ; 
but the phrase is only indefinite, " Be- 
cause of the Jews in those places." 

12 Acts xvi. 1, 3. 

13 2 Tim. i. 5, iii. 15. 

14 2 Tim. i. 5. This is made still 
clearer if we adopt Lachmann's read- 
ing in 2 Tim. iii. 14, irapa rivcov (for 
Trctpa tivoq), "of whom (pi.) thou 
learnedst." 

15 Acts xvi. 13- 



A.D. 49 or 51, 



Ordination of Timothy. 



461 



pression made on the youth's ardent and sensitive mind by the 
labors and sufferings of the Apostle, who does not hesitate 
thus to appeal to him :— " But thou hast fully known (lit. 
traced step by step) rny doctrine, manner of life, purpose, 
faith, long-suffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, 
which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra ;" 18 
and the lesson, that we must through much tribulation enter 
into the kingdom of God, seems to have led Timothy to keep 
down a temperament somewhat prone to youthful lusts by an 
ascetic rigor beyond the power of his weak bodily frame. 17 
The sensitive spirit, which was easily moved to tears 18 and 
shrank from opposition and responsibility, 13 struck a sympa- 
thetic chord in the heart of Paul, whose tenderness to his 
il own son in the faith," mingled with the faithfulness of his 
exhortations, has dictated some of the most touching passages 
in the New Testament. 

These intimate relations date from Paul's second journey, 
when the Apostle, on arriving at Lystra, " would have him to 
go forth with him." During the interval of seven years, 
Timothy had grown up to manhood, and the " good report," 
which his character had gained from the brethren at Iconium 
as well as Lystra, leads us to believe that he had been already 
employed in what was afterward to be the great labor of his 
life as " the messenger of the churches," and that it was his 
tried fitness for that office which determined St. Paul's choice. 
Those who had the deepest insight into character, and who 
spoke with a prophetic utterance, pointed to him, 20 as others 
had pointed before to Paul and Barnabas, 21 as specially fit for 
the missionary work in which the Apostle was engaged. 
Personal feeling led St. Paul to the same conclusion, and tim- 
othy was solemnly set apart — the whole assembly of the Eld- 
ers laying their hands upon him, as did the Apostle himself — 
to do the work and possibly to bear the title of Evangelist.™ 
. But, before they went forth to the work, Paul " took and 
circumcised him, because of the Jews which were in those 
quarters : for they all knew that his father was a Greek," 23 — 
an act the more remarkable, as Paul was engaged in deliver- 



16 2 Tim. ii. 10, 11. The mention 
of Antioch and Iconium does not 
necessarily imply that Timothy wit- 
nessed Paul's sufferings at those 
places. It is enough to suppose that, 
having seen the events at Lystra, he 
heard with interest of those at the 
other cities. 



17 1 Tim. v. 2, 23. 18 2 Tim. iv. 4. 

19 1 Tim. iv, 12-16, v. 20, 21, vi. 
11-14; 2 Tim. ii. 1-7. 

20 1 Tim. i. 18, iv. 14. 

21 Acts xiii. 2. 

22 Acts xvi. 1-3 ; 1 Tkn. iv. 14 ; 2 
Tim. i. G, iv. 5. 

23 Acts xvi. 3. 



462 St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 

ing to the churches the decree made at Jerusalem, where 
Titus had been expressly exempted from circumcision. But 
Titus, so far as we know, was a Greek, without any inter- 
mixture of Jewish blood; while Timothy, as the son of a 
Jewess, would appear to the Jews in the light of a negligent 
Israelite, the seal of whose profession had been disowned from 
his very infancy. That no offense had been felt hitherto, may 
be explained by the predominance of the Gentile element in 
the churches of Lycaonia. 24 But now his wider work would 
bring him into contact with the Jews, and the scandal would 
frustrate all his efforts as an Evangelist. So, in this case, 
Paul " became unto the Jews as a Jew, that he might gain 
the Jews." It is assuredly a conspicuous example of simple 
faithfulness in the narrative of the Acts, that St. Luke should 
have recorded the incident without any further explanation to 
guard against the charge of inconsistency. None the less 
did Paul and Silvanus, with their new companion, " go through 
the cities, enjoining them to keep the decrees ordained by 
the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem. And so were the 
churches established in the faith, and increased in number 
daily." 25 

§ 3. At Iconium, or possibly at Antioch, they left the track 
of Paul's first journey, and — doubtless guided by those divine 
directions which attended each successive stage of their 
progress — they turned northward into the central region of 
Asia Minor, which is described by the general phrase of 
"Phrygia™ and the region of Galatia;" and all that we 
learn further from St. Luke of their course through the penin- 
sula is this : — Being forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach 
the word in Asia (the Roman province), they came into the 
eastern border of Mysia, and endeavored to enter Bithynia ; 
but the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them. So they passed 
through Mysia into the Troad ; and there, at the city of Alex- 
andria Troas, Paul saw the vision which called them over into 
Europe. 27 

This -brief outline may be in part filled up from St. Paul's 



24 Acts xiv. 27. 

25 Acts xvi. 4, 5. 

We know absolutely nothing of 
the labors of the Apostle in Phrygia, 
nor of any of its cities in which 
he founded churches ; for Colossi, 
though belonging cthnologically to 
Phrygia, was included in Asia, which 
he was forbidden to enter ; nor does 
it seem clear that he ever visited Co- 



lossse. (See below, in the account of 
Colossse, chap, xviii. § 16). Politi- 
cally, Phrygia was comprised in the 
proconsular province of Asia ; Galatia 
was under the government of an im- 
perial propraetor. 

27 Acts xvi. 6-9. Mr. Lewin as- 
signs the whole year, a.d. 50, to the 
labors of Paul in Phrygia and Gala- 
tia. 






A.D. 60 (?). St. Paul in Oalatia. 463 

Epistle to the Galatians. That people were the descendants 
of the great Celtic hordes which, repulsed in their attack on 
Northern Greece in the 3d century B.C., had overflowed the 
bounds of Europe, and occupied the central table-land of Asia 
Minor.' 28 There, adopting the Greek language, and hence 
called Gallogrceci, they practiced the enthusiastic Phrygian 
orgies of Cybele, the mother of the Gods, with the natural 
fervor of their impulsive race. Such a people presented a 
most interesting field for the preacher of the Gospel ; and it 
appears that an attack of illness, which detained Paul in their 
country, gave him a prolonged opportunity of laboring among 
them. 29 His infirmity appears to have moved sympathy 
rather than scom among a people of generous impulses. 
With the extravagance of their race, they welcomed him as an 
angel of God, yea, as Jesus Christ himself ; they greeted him 
with those " blessings " 30 which flow so freely from the Celtic 
tongue ; and he himself, when compelled to remonstrate with 
their truly Celtic instability, bears them witness that, " had 
it been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, 
and have given them to me." 31 Nor is the Aj)ostle's testimo- 
ny less emphatic to the simple character of that Gospel, the 
same amid these pastoral Celts that he afterward made his 
sole message to the refined Corinthians — " Jesus Christ, evi- 
dently set forth, crucified among you" — "the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ," as the only object of which he would 
boast ; 32 and which proved its power among them by leveling 
every distinction between Jew and Gentile, slave and free- 
man. 33 How soon the Judaizers removed them from him that 
called them to the grace of Christ unto another Gospel, which 
was not another, but an invention of those who desired to 

28 There is no real difference be- j some of the best commentators hold 
tween the names of Galli and Galatce. I that, instead of construing Paul's 
As the Greek writers called the Cel^s Hebraistic Greek thus strictly, we 
of Gallia TaXctTat, so the Latin writ- j should read " in infirmity of tlie flesh." 
ers called those of Galatia Galli. j In either case, the Apostle seems to 
raXaTcd is the same word as Kt'Xrc" i refer to a more than ordinary press- 
and as Kelt, the generic name of the ' urc of that bodily infirmity, of which 
Celtic race ; but the people are be- j he speaks elsewhere as detracting 
lieved to have belonged rather to the \ from the influence of his personal ad- 
Cymric than the Gaelic subdivision j dress. 

of the race. 30 /jiaKapiafiog. It has been sug- 

29 This is the plain grammatical gested that thk may refer to their 
sense of di aoOivsiav rrjc crapicbg in calling him one of the- p.dicapei; QeoL. 
Gal. iv. 13: "Ye know how through \ 3I Gal. iv. 13-15. 

infirmity of the flesh I preached the I 32 Gal. iii. 1, vi. 14: comp, ? Civ. 
Gospel among you at the first." But i. 13, 17, ii. 2. 

33 Galatians iii. 28 . . 



464 



St.PauTs Seco?id Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 



trouble the converts and pervert the Gospel of Christ, 34 we 
shall see presently. Meanwhile it should be observed that we 
have no mention of any central church founded in any of the 
Galatian cities, not even Ancyra, the capital, being so much as 
named. 35 The churches of Galatia 36 were doubtless scattered 
among the villages of that patriarchal people ; and this isola- 
tion may have exposed them the more readily to the attacks 
of the Judaizing perverters who systematically dogged the 
footsteps of Paul. 

§ 4. Of the reasons for which the Apostolic band were for- 
bidden to enter Bithynia or to preach the Gospel in Asia," 
the sacred narrative is silent. We might conjecture that the 
time was not yet come for a direct encounter with the power- 
ful governments and corrupt society of those provinces. 
But it is of more profit to observe the fact that their path, 
thus hedged up on the right and the left, was guided to the 
spot, where it was revealed that they had been thus brought 
down to the extremity of Asia in order to carry over the 
Gospel into Europe. Nearly four centuries had passed since 
the Macedonian conqueror crossed the narrow strait of the 
Hellespont to overthrow the great despotism that enthralled 
Asia, and now, near that plain of Troy on which Alexander 
stayed to indulge the dream of rivaling the fame of his 
ancestor Achilles, at the very city named in the conqueror's 
honor. 38 St. Paul beheld in vision another " man of Macedo- 



34 Gal. i. 7. 

35 Ancyra (now Angora), famed for 
the discovery of the Monumentum An- 
cyranum, inscribed with Augustus's 
own account of his reign, was the 
meeting-place of all the great roads 
in the north of the peninsula. Its 
importance dates from the imperial 
age. 30 Gal. i. 2. 

37 It is not said that they were for- 
bidden to enter Asia, through which, 
in fact, a part of their route neces- 
sarily lay, for My si a and the Troad 
were included in proconsular Asia. 
Perhaps, in this passage, the name of 
Asia may be confined to Ionia. 

38 The Troas of Acts xvi. and xx., 
2 Cor. 12, 13, and 2 Tim. iv. 13, 
seems clearly to signify a city ; and 
the name of Troas simply is applied 
also by other writers to the sea-port 
of Alexandria Troas, the most flour- 
ishing city of the Troad in the Greek 



and Roman ages. It was built by 
Antigonus on the W. coast of Mysia, 
opposite Tenedos, and was originally 
named Antigonia Troas ; but Lysima- 
chus changed its name to Alexandria. 
The honor with which the Greeks 
cherished a city built on ground con- 
secrated by the memories of Achilles 
and Alexander, was rivaled by the 
reverence of the Romans for the pre- 
sumed cradle of their race. The city 
was made a colony, with the Jus ItaU 
icum ; and these associations seem to 
have combined with its local position 
to induce both Julius and Augustus 
to meditate the transfer of the seat 
of empire to Alexandria (Suet. C&s. 
79 ; Hor. Carm. iii. 3, 57). When the 
scheme of an oriental capital was 
carried out by Constantine, his first 
choice was Alexandria, and his inten- 
tion is commemorated by the modern 
name of the ruins, Eski-Stamboul 



A.D. 51 (?). 



St. Paul at Philippi. 



465 



nia," " uttering the cry of the western world suffering be- 
neath the despotism of sin, and calling to the soldiers of the 
cross, " Come over and help us." The power which had led 
Europe to the armed conquest of Asia was the first to invite 
conquest from the spiritual force of which Asia had been the 
primeval cradle. Not a doubt could enter the Apostle's mind 
about the nature of the " help " he was called to give ; and so 
Luke, speaking now in the first person, as having here joined 
Paul and Timothy and Silas, says, " Immediately we endeav- 
ored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord 
had called us to preaeh the Gospel unto them." 40 It is, per- 
haps, not too arbitrary a conjecture, that the Apostle, having 
recently suffered in health, derived benefit from the medical 
skill of the " beloved physician." 

§ 5. The very elements seemed to concur with the Apostle's 
obedience to the heavenly vision ; and the voyage, which on a 
later occasion occupied five days, 41 was now performed in two, 
the ship keeping a straight course past Tenedos and Imbros 
to the lofty island of Samothracia, and thence on the follow- 
ing day to Neapolis, on the Strymonic Gulf. 42 From this 
port they followed the great Roman road ( Via Egnatia), 
over the rocky ridge of Symbolum, the prolongation of Mount 
Pangseus, descending into the plain of Philippi, memorable 
for the defeat of Brutus and Cassius. To celebrate that event, 
Augustus had founded a Roman colony near the site of the 
more ancient city built by the great Macedonian, probably to 
replace the still older factory established by the PhoBnicians 
for the working of the gold mines of Pangseus and Thasos. 
The Macedonian and Roman city alike formed a frontier post 
against the barbarians of Thrace ; and Philippi was now the 
chief city of Eastern Macedonia, though the capital of the 
province was at Thessalonica. 43 

As being more a military than a commercial city, it was not 

{Old Constantinople). The harbor, 
which is still distinctly traceable, was 
the great port for voyagers between 
Macedonia and Asia Minor. 

39 It is impossible to overlook the co- 
incidence of the phrase with the dvrjp 
MclksSmv of Demosthenes — the en- 
slaver of Greece. (Demosth. Philipp. 
i. p. 43.) 

40 Acts xvi. 9, 10. 

41 Acts xx. 6. This was the return 
voyage from Philippi (Neapolis) to 
Troas, on his Third Missionary Jour- 
ney. 



42 Acts xvi. 11. For a full discus- 
sion of the site of Neapolis, which is 
probably the modern Cavalla, see the 
Diet, of the Bible, s. v. 

41 Acts xvi. 12. We have here an- 
other example of St. Luke's accuracy 
as to Roman matters. The ruins of 
Philippi are very extensive, but pre- 
sent no striking feature except two 
gate-ways, which are considered to 
belong to the time of Claudius. 
Traces of an amphitheatre, theatre, 
or stadium — for it does not clearly 
appear which — are visible in the di- 



466 St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVL 

likely to have many Jewish residents ; and, instead of a syna- 
gogue, the Jews only possessed an oratory (Trpoaevxv) outside 
the city, by the side of one of the rivulets which gave the 
place its ancient name of " the Springs." Such a locality, 
too, would suit the itinerant traders, who came with their 
mules to the market outside the city (for they were not allow- 
ed to pass the walls) to carry to the Thracian clans of Pan- 
gseus and Hsenius the dyed stuffs which were imported from 
Asia Minor ; and to supply their wants an establishment had 
been formed by " a certain woman named Ltdia, a seller of 
purple, of the city of Thyatira." She was a Jewish proselyte, 44 
and was wont to resort with other women to the oratory. To 
this humble congregation, Paul and his companions, going out 
of the city on the Sabbath day, made known the Gospel for 
the first time in Europe, with a result equally remarkable for 
the absence of all ostentation : — " The Lord opened the heart 
of Lydia, that she attended unto the things which were spoken 
of Paul." By her baptism, with her household, Lydia gave 
the first recorded example of that great character which 
Christianity shares with Judaism, as & family religion; and 
she followed it up with the first great example of Christian 
hospitality, constraining the Apostolic band to become her 
guests during their stay in Philippi. 46 \~^~ 

§ 6. This quiet beginning was succeeded\by an open con- 
flict, which throws a flood of light on the real state of hea- 
thenism at this time. The ancient faith in the deities of Olym- 
pus and the Capitol, long all but extinct throughout the Greek 
and Roman world, had given place to a mixture of philo- 
sophic scepticism and credulous superstition ; nor were there 
wanting speculators, who made gain of the desire to pry into 
the future by the arts of divination. These pretensions were 
doubtless generally sheer imposture ; but unless we would 
charge back a similar imposture upon Paul himself, we must 
take his solemn adjuration to imply the reality of demoniacal 
possession in the case before us. 46 But it must be carefully 

rcction of the hills on the N.E. side. I fai/d/ia) leaves a doubt whether those 
Inscriptions arc found both in the • baptized with Lydia were her chil- 



Latin and Greek languages, but more 
generally in the former. 

44 Acts xvi. 14 : asfiofxtvri rbv Qeov. 
Lydia seems clearly to be a proper 
name, though Thyatira was in the 



dren, slaves, or work-people, or all 
these. 

40 Acts xvi." 18. Of course the 
same argument applies to St. Luke's 
statement of the consequent fact, " the 



district anciently called Lydia. i spirit came out the same hour." The 

45 Acts xvi. 13-15, 40. The pe- ! general subject of demoniacal posses- 
culiar extension of meaning belonging | sion has already been discussed. See 
to the Greek oIkoq (like the Latin chap. viii. § 12. 



A.D. 51 (?). 



The Possessed Damsel Healed. 



467 



observed that the question, whether a soul intellectually and 
morally abandoned to disorder was suffered to fall under the 
power of a personal evil spirit, is quite distinct from the 
claims of supernatural knowledge and prophecy of which the 
possessed were chosen as the agents. Indeed the reality of the 
possession sets in a more striking light the vileness of the im- 
posture which trafficked in the worst evil that could befall hu- 
manity. In short, the Apostle was now encountered at once 
by the malice of the unseen world 47 and the cupidity of this. 

Among the seats of ancient superstition, Thrace had been 
conspicuous from time immemorial for the enthusiastic orgies , 
of the Bacchic and Orphic worship ; and the Maenads, who 
scattered the limbs of Pentheus over Hasmus, and threw the 
head of Orpheus upon the Hebrus with the name of Eurydice 
still trembling on his tongue, had their successors in a race of 
" sacred slaves," who served as attendants upon the oracle of 
Dionysus on Mount Pangssus. One of these, perhaps hired 
from the priests, or some other poor wretch possessed with 
a spirit which was supposed to inspire oracles like those 
uttered by the Pythoness at Delphi, 48 drove a gainful trade 
for her masters in the oracles which she vended, probably to 
the wild natives who frequented the market outside the city 
walls. As Paul and his companions went out to the place of 
prayer, the slave girl followed them with the continued cry — 
" These men are servants of the Most High God, which shew 
unto us the way of salvation." Some suppose that her cries 
were a scornful mimicry of the proclamation of the Gospel by 
Paul himself. At all events we may be sure that they were 
uttered in the same spirit as that of the devils who confessed 
Christ, and whom he suffered not to speak. Thus also Paul, 
after the scene had been repeated for many days, with his pa- 
tience exhausted 40 turned round and proved the truth of her 
confession by bidding the spirit in the name of Jesus Christ 
to come out of her : and it came out the same hour. 50 

Enraged at the destruction of their " property," and sup- 



47 Comp. Ephes. vi. 12: "Our 
wrestling is not against flesh and 
blood, but against principalities, 
against powers, against the world- 
rulers of the darkness of this age, 
against the spirit of wickedness among 
the heavenly beings." 

48 Acts xvi. 16 : irvevpa ttvQwvoq, a 
spirit of python. The mephitic va- 
pors of the cavern, in which the re- 
mains of the monster-serpent {python) 



slain by Apollo rotted (jrv9h)=^to rot), 
were tire supposed medium of Del- 
phic inspiration. Pytho was the an- 
cient name of the city and oracle 
in Phocis, which was called Delphi 
from the tribe who became its pos- 
sessors. 

49 SictTrovrjOeie, ver. 18. 

50 Acts xvi. 1 6-1 8. The ini noWac 
ripzpag is an indication of the length 
of Paul's stay at Philippi. 



468 St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 

ported doubtless by a tumultuous mob of those who were 
wont to receive the oracles, the masters of the slave-girl seized 
Paul and Silas, and dragged them before the local magistrates, 
the duumviri — or praetors, as the judges of a colonia prefer- 
red to be called — sitting in the forum. 51 Well aware that they 
had no claim for the loss incurred through the Apostle's ex- 
orcism, they preferred the charge — to which the responsibility 
of local magistrates was peculiarly sensitive — that these Jews 
raised a tumult in the city, and taught customs unlawful for 
Romans to adopt. The clamor of the multitude stood in place 
of evidence and deliberation ; and the alarmed magistrates, 
with a haste probably usual in their dealings with the wild 
frequenters of the outer market, tore off the prisoners' clothes, 
and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 52 Then, bleeding 
from a Roman scourging of unusual severity, 53 they were deliv- 
ered to the jailer with a charge to keep them safe ; and the 
brutal officer thrust them into the inner prison, a dungeon of 
which the Tullianum at Rome may give us some idea, adding 
the torture of making their feet fast in the stocks.™ Over 
this " suffering, and shameful treatment," which Paul after- 
ward recalls as inflicted upon him at Philippi, 55 the spirit of 
Christian fortitude arose to cheerfulness. The midnight si- 
lence of the prison, usually disturbed only by groans and 
curses, was this night broken by the loud hymns in which 
Paul and Silas uttered their prayers and praises to God ; 56 
and the prisoners were listening to the sound, when a great 
earthquake shook the very foundations of the prison, all the 
doors suddenly flew open, and all bonds were loosed. 57 \^~ 
Roused from his sleep, and seeing the open doors, tlie jail- 
er thought the prisoners had escaped, and drew his sword to 



51 The plain meaning of the narra- 
tive seems to be that the dpxovreg 
(v. 19) and the arpar^yoi (v. 20) 
were the same officers; the former 
being a generic term, answering to 
magistrates, and the latter the specific 
title of the prcetors (or duumviri). It 
is remarkable that nothing is said of 
Timothy or Luke, though the first 
person has just been used, — " as we 
went to prayer " — "the same followed 
Paul and us." Paul and Silas were 
doubtless regarded as the chief speak- 
ers and actors. 

52 The whole transaction seems to 
have passed so rapidly that Paul had 



no time to plead his citizenship, of 
which the authorities first heard the 
next day. 

5 IIoXAdc rt bmOivTeg avrolg 7r\ij- 
yag, ver. 23. 

54 The %v\ov or nervus was a bar of 
wood or iron, to which the feet were 
bound, and which could be converted 
into an aggravated torture, at the will 
of the jailer, by drawing the legs far 
apart. The torment of such a post- 
ure was of course the more intolera- 
ble from the previous scourging. 

55 1 Thess. ii. 2. 

56 7rpo(jevx6[A£Voi v/xpovv rbv Oiov, 
ver. 25. 



Comp. Acts v. 19, xii. G-10. 



A.D. 51 (?). 



Jailer at Philippi Converted. 



469 



kill himself, when Paul cried to him with a loud voice, " Do 
thyself no harm : for we are all here." Calling for a light, he 
sprang into the dungeon, and in a state of overwhelming awe 
he fell down at the feet of Paul and Silas, and as soon as he 
had brought them out, put the question, " Sirs, what must I 
do to be saved ?" The trembling eagerness of the inquirer, 
and the nature of the reply, concur with the spiritual instinct 
which has so often since repeated the same words, to prove 
that they were uttered in no sense short of the alarm of an 
awakened sinner for the safety of his soul ; and the answer 
has ever since formed the brief but complete summary of the 
Gospel, — " Believe in the Lokd Jesus Christ, and thou 
siialt be saved :" — nor let it be forgotten that this, perhaps 
the most pointed of all the proclamations of the way of salva- 
tion, adds the words which extend the blessing to the family 
of the believer — " and thy house." Not, however, that this 
simple phrase was to operate like some magic formula, or to 
be accepted as the shibboleth of a faith. It was but the text 
of a fuller exposition of Christian truth, by which both the 
jailer and his family were led to saving faith; for "they 
spake unto him the word of God, and to all those in his house;" 
and with this agrees the ensuing record of their common 
baptism and their common faith. 68 The change that had 
come over the spirit of the jailer was attested by the tender 
care with which he washed the prisoners' stripes, brought 
them into his own house, and set food before them. 69 

Whether the magistrates were terrified by the earthquake, 
or ashamed of their hasty violence, or simply indifferent to 
the injustice by which they had appeased the tumult, they 
thought to end the matter by the order, sent to the prison by 
the lictors, as soon as it was day, " Let those men go." With 
joyful haste the jailer told the order to Paul and Silas, and 
bade them go in peace. But the great preacher of righteous- 
ness felt it his duty to vindicate the rights that had been out- 
raged in his person and his companion's, who seems, like himself, 
to have been a Roman citizen. 60 Cicero had long since proclaim- 
ed the magic charm of that appeal, Civis Romanus sum, which 
many in the uttermost parts of the earth had found their help 
and their salvation, even among barbarians ; 61 and the same 
great voice had declared the maxim which has passed into a 



58 "And he was baptized, he and all 
his straightway" — "and he rejoiced, 
believing in God with all his 

59 Acts xvi. 25-34. 



60 The argument from the plural 
Romans (v. 37, 38) is corroborated by 
the Roman name Silvanus. 

01 Cic. in Verr. v. 57. 



470 St. PauTs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI 

proverb : — " To bind a Roman citizen is an outrage, to scourge 
him is a crime." But to this had been added the extremes of 
indignity and injustice: — "They have beaten us openly, un- 
condemned" — said Paul — " being Romans, and have cast us 
into prison, and now do they thrust us out privily ? Nay, 
verily ; but let them come themselves and fetch us out." 
These are not the words of bravado and self-importance ; but s 
the first time that the Apostle came into contact with the 
Roman government, he set the great example of Christian po- 
litical principle, by vindicating the Roman constitution, and 
teaching magistrates their responsibility. They, terrified by 
the message brought back by the lictors — for Claudius watched 
vigilantly over the administration of the provinces — came to 
the prison to entreat Paul and Silas to be satisfied and to de- 
part from the city. 

Having first returned to the house of Lydia, and exhorted 
the brethren, Paul and Silas went on their way through Macedo- 
nia, leaving Luke, and apparently Timothy also, to build up the 
newly-founded church, with the aid doubtless of presbyters, 
and of those Christian women, the original companions of 
Lydia at the oratory, whose labors with him in the Gospel 
Paul records in his Epistle to the church. 62 In. that Epis- 
tle too we have proofs of the tender affection and generous 
feeling which bound together Paul and his Philippian converts, 
from this day to his imprisonment at Rome. Addressed by 
him as " my brethren, dearly beloved, and longed for," C3 the 
cause of thankfulness to God at every remembrance of them, 04 
they gave practical proofs of their attachment by sending aid 
to him more than once as early as his residence at Thessaloni- 
ca, following him with it when he left Macedonia, 05 and by 
their continued fellowship in the Gospel and their aid to Paul 
in its defense and confirmation, down to the time of his im- 
prisonment, giving him full confidence that " He who had be- 
gun the good work in them would perform it to the day of 
Jesus Christ." 66 

Nor must we omit to notice the manifest order of progres- 
sion in the cases of conversion recorded in this memorable 
chapter of the Acts. 07 Timothy, the gentle son of a godly 
mother, is insensibly trained to piety by early instruction in 
the Scriptures. Lydia, the devout proselyte, no sooner hears 
the truth from the lips of Paul, than her heart is opened to 
receive it. The jailer of Philippi, an ignorant and hard- 

62 Phil. iv. 2. ° 3 Phil. iv. 1 fi4 Phil. i. 3. 65 Phil. iv. 15, 16. 

co Phil. i. 3-8. G7 Actsxvi, 






A.D. 51 (?). /St. Paul at Thessalonica. 471 

hearted heathen, struck by the terror of sudden conviction, 
utters the agonizing cry, What must J do to be saved? But 
all are united at Philippi in the fellowship of one faith and 
baptism. 

§ 7. Passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, scenes 
which would recall to the mind of Paul some of the most fa- 
mous events of Grecian history, and crossing the base of 
the Chalci.dic peninsula, the Apostle arrived with Silas at 
Thessaloxica, at the head of the Thermaic Gulf. 68 Lying 
directly in their route, as the chief station on the Egnatian 
road, and not only important as the Roman capital of Macedo^ 
nia, but as a commercial city second only to Athens and 
Corinth, Thessalonica was further suited to be a centre of 
Christianity by possessing a synagogue of the Jews, who 
were attracted to it by its trade. 69 Paul, according to his 
custom, went into the synagogue on three successive Sabbaths, 
and reasoned with the Jews out of the Scriptures ; the sub- 
stance of his argument being the same as that of the Lord 
himself on the way to Emmaus, "that Christ must needs have 
suffered, and risen again from the dead ; and that this Jesus, 
whom I preach unto you, is Christ." His preaching made 
numerous converts among the Greek proselytes, and among 
the women of high station. 70 This success, as at Antiocn in 
Pisidia, roused the envy of the unbelieving Jews, who easily 
raised a tumult among the vagabonds and idlers in the market 
of this great port. 71 The mob attacked the house of Jason 
(probably a Hellenist, with whom Paul and Silas were stay- 
ing), intending to bring them forth to the vengeance of the 
people ; but, not finding them there, they dragged Jason and 
certain brethren before the politarchs, for such was the title 
of the magistrates of Thessalonica, which ranked as a free city 
(libera civitas), but not a colony. 71b To the general outcry, 
that Jason had received " these men who have come hither 



7(1 Acts xvii. 2-4. 

71 TuJvayopaiu)i> rivaq avCpag Trovrjp- 

OVQ. 

71b Again we find St. Luke's ac- 
curacy confirmed by an inscription 



68 See Notes and Illustrations (B). 

09 Acts xvii. 1. The Jews have 
ever since had a prominent place in 
the annals of the city. They are 
mentioned in the 7th century during 

the Sclavonic wars ; and again in the i found at Thessalonica, in which not 
12th by Eustathius and Benjamin of ; only are the Politarchs mentioned 
Tudela. In the 15th century there j by name, but several of their names 
was a great influx of Spanish Jews. : are identical with those that oc- 
At the present day the numbers of , cur in Paul's Epistles, as Sopatcr, 
residents in the Jewish quarter are j Lucius, Pontius, Secundus, Publius, 
estimated at 10,000 or 20,000, out of ; Demas, Gaius. (Bockh, C. I., No. 
an aggregate population of G0.000 or 1967 : Lewin, Fast. Sac, A.m. 51, No. 
70,000. 1767.) 



472 



tSt. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 



also, 73 turning the world upside down " — and well it needed 
such a restoration of the order which sin had long since in- 
verted — they added the specific charge which so strongly ap- 
pealed to the fears of a Roman magistrate : — " And all these 
do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is 
another king, Jesus." Though sharing in the general agita- 
tion, the magistrates did not, like the praetors of Philippi, 
forget their judicial character. They were content to take 
security of Jason and the rest ; and the brethren immediately 
sent away Paul and Silas by night to Bercea. The length of 
Paul's stay at Thessalonica is indicated by the fact already 
noticed, that the Philippians sent twice to relieve his necessi- 
ties. 

The two Epistles to the Thessalonians, which were written 
very soon after the Apostle's visit, add most important par- 
ticulars of his work in founding that church. He speaks to 
the Thessalonian Christians as being mostly Gentiles ; and 
reminds them that they had turned from idols to serve the 
living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, 
whom he raised from the dead, " Jesus who delivers us from 
the coming wrath." 73 The Apostle had evidently spoken 
much of the coming and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and of that wrath which was already descending upon the 
Jews. 74 His message had had a wonderful power among 
them, because they had known it to be really the word of God 
who also wrought in them; a conviction aided by the zeal 
and disinterestedness and affection with which St. Paul (not- 
withstanding his recent shameful treatment at Philippi) pro- 
claimed his Gospel among them. 75 Pic had purposely wrought 
with his own hands, even night and day, that his disinterest- 
edness might be more apparent ; 76 and he exhorted them not 
to be drawn away from patient industry by the hopes of the 
kingdom into which they were called ; but to work quietly, 
and to cultivate purity and brotherly love. 77 Connecting 
these allusions with the preaching in the synagogue, we see 
clearly how the teaching of St. Paul turned upon the person 
of Jesus Christ as the Son of the Living God, prophesied of in 
the Scriptures, suffering and dying, raised up and exalted to 
a kingdom, and about to appear as the giver of light and life, 
to the destruction of his enemies and the saving of those who 
trusted in him. 



72 This phrase seems to contain an 
allusion to what had passed at Phil- 
ippi. 

73 1 Thess. i. 9, 10. 



1 Thess. ii. 16, 19, etc. 
1 Thess. ii. 2, 8-13. 
1 Thess. ii. 9 ; 2 Thess. lii. 8 
1 Thess. iv. 3, 9, 11. 



A.D. 51 (?). Paul and Silas at Beraza. 473 

But the same Epistle proves that, almost immediately after 
his departure, the expectations which he had taught them to 
entertain of the appearing and presence of the Lord Jesus 
Christ had already undergone some corruption. There were 
symptoms in the Thessalonian church of a restlessness which 
speculated on the times and seasons of the future, and found 
present duties flat and unimportant. This evil tendency St. 
Paul seeks to correct, by reviving the first spirit of faith and 
hope and mutual fellowship, and by setting forth the appear- 
ing of Jesus Christ — not indeed as distant, but as the full 
shining of a day of which all believers in Christ were already 
children. But the very language by which he sought to cor- 
rect the error was perversely pleaded in its support, and 
self-constituted interpreters of prophecy did not scruple to 
add forged letters in his name to their pretended revelations 
by the Holy Spirit. Through these devices, the Thessalo- 
nians had been disturbed by announcements that those con- 
vulsions of the world, which all Christians were taught to 
associate Avith the coming of Christ, were immediately im- 
pending. This was the occasion of St. Paul's Second Epistle 
to the Tliessalonians, written, like the First, during his resi- 
dence at Corinth, which throws new light upon his teaching 
while he was in the city. The words, " Remember ye not that, 
when I was yet with you, I told you these things," refer to 
that prediction, so much more explicit than is Paul's usual 
habit, of the great Apostasy and the revelation of the " Man 
of Sin," which must precede " the day of Jesus Christ." 78 

§ 8. Bero3A, 79 whither Paul and Silas retreated from Thessa- 
lonica, appears also to have had a large number of Jews, who 
proved themselves to be of a nobler spirit 80 than those of 
Thessalonica, by that conduct which has made them ever 
since a pattern of honest and earnest religious inquiry, the 
very course which Christ had in vain urged upon his hearers 
at Jerusalem. 81 Paul and Silas went into their synagogue ; 
and often as the Apostle's ministry had been thus opened, 
often as he had reasoned out of the Scriptures concerning 
Christ, this is the first time that we find his Jewish hearers 

78 2 Thess. ii. 1-5. I inhabitants. A few ancient remains, 

79 Now Verria or Kara-Verria. Oc- ' Greek, Roman and Byzantine, still 
cupying an elevated site on the east- i exist here. 

em slope of Olympus, with an abund- K0 tvytvkarepoi. May the difference 
ant supply of water, and commanding I be partly accounted for'by the Bercean 
a wide view over the plain of the I Jews being less engrossed in trade 
Axius and Haliacmon, it is regarded | than those of the port of Thessaloni- 
as one of the most agreeable towns in j ca ? 
Rumili, and has now 15,000 or 20,000 I 61 John v. 39. 



474 St. PauTs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 

calmly testing the truth of his teaching, — " They received the 
word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures 
daily, whether those things were so. Therefore " — as the 
natural consequence — " many of .them believed," with not a 
few Greeks, among whom we again find women of distinc- 
tion. 82 This the Thessalonian Jews no sooner heard, than 
they completed the parallel to those of the Pisidian Antioch 
by pursuing the Apostles to Beroea, and stirring up the peo- 
ple ; and a tumult was only avoided by Paul's departure for 
the coast, probably at Dium, whence he set sail for Athens. 
The haste and secrecy of the movement is seen in his leaving 
behind Silas and Timothy (w r ho had rejoined him either at 
Thessalonica or Beroea), and sending back word to them, by 
the brethren who had escorted him to Athens, to join him 
with all speed. 83 We can hardly fail to see that the Apostle 
was urged on to the great work now before him by a Provi- 
dence that overruled his plans ; for he tells the Thessalonians 
that once and again, when he desired to revisit them, Satan 
hindered him : but Satan little knew the blow he aimed at his 
own kingdom, when his persecution drove Paul to Athens. 84 

That the Apostle had no deliberate purpose of going to 
Athens seems clear from the statement that the brethren at 
Beroea sent him away to go to the sea / and then his conduct- 
ors, guided no doubt by circumstances, such as what vessels 
happened to be sailing, brought him to Athens. The dis- 
tinctive divine call which appointed him the Apostle of the 
Gentiles is made all the clearer from the slowness, not to say 
reluctance, with which he is urged on from Jerusalem to 
Cilicia and Syria, from Asia Minor to Europe, from the Jew- 
ish settlements in Macedonia to Athens and Corinth, as if the 
voice were repeated at every step, "Depart ! for J will send 
thee far hence unto the Gentiles." Paul was no rash adven- 
turer, rushing forward in his own strength to the conflict with 
Greek philosophy and Roman force. 

§ 9. Even when he found himself at Athens, Paul showed 
no haste to enter upon the work, but waited till he should be 
joined by Silas and Timotheus. 85 There was nothing outward- 
ly to distinguish him from any other Hellenistic Jew, as — to 



62 Acts xvii. 10-13. The daily 
searching of the Scriptures seems to 
imply daily intercourse with Paul and 
Silas as their guides in the study. 

b3 Paul gained from Bcrcea another 
of the companions of his travels, So- 
pater the son of Pyrrhus, who return- 



ed with him from Greece to Asia on 
his third missionary journey (Acts 
xx. 4). The fact of the navigation 
being open may perhaps indicate that 
the winter was now past. 

84 Acts xvii. 13-15. 

85 Acts xvii. 16. 






A.D. 51 (?). St. Paul at Athens. 475- 

use his own description of his occupation — he " walked 
through the city, and contemplated the objects of worship," is 
with a spirit, taste and knowledge to appreciate those glori- 
ous works of Phidias and his successors, whose mutilated 
fragments we cherish as the choicest of our art treasures. 
But here, too, what things were gain to him he counted loss 
for Christ. Before we give a moment's place to the thought 
that the Apostle disparaged the excellence of art, let us re- 
member that the forms, which to us have lost their profane 
meaning with their pristine beauty, had then that beauty 
prostituted to the most degrading use. The very perfection 
of the art thus perverted would add to the keenness of Paul's 
indignation at seeing such a city given to idolatry. 87 He 
could refrain no longer ; and so, in addition to his usual dis- 
cussions in the synagogue with the Jews and proselytes, he 
began to discourse every day in the Agora (the market-place) 
with all who frequented that public resort, like Socrates on 
the same spot five centuries before. The mutations which had 
brought down the city of Pericles from her political and mar- 
tial glory had made no essential change in the character of the 
Athenian people. They were still the lively, keen-witted, im- 
pressible jDemus, using the leisure of ancient freemen, to 
whom work was a degradation, in the open-air life of the 
Agora, lounging there in body, but in mind restlessly active 
and eager after every novelty : " For all the Athenians and 
strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, 
but either to tell or to hear some new thing." 88 

Here at length the utmost efforts of the highest human in- 
tellect, in search of that philosophy in the light of which man 
was to live and to die, w^ere placed in direct contrast with the 
truths revealed by God to the chosen people. The Apostle 
proclaimed Jesus and the Resurrection as the means of confer- 
ring that spiritual life which the philosophers had given up in 
despair, taking refuge in the two great theories of the Porch 
and the Garden, — the triumph over the accidents of life by a 
proud independence, or the fruition of its blessings by using 
them before they perish. The philosophers of both schools 
encountered Paul with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. 
The Epicurean, teaching himself to seek for tranquil enjoy- 
ment as the chief object of life, heard of Oxe claiming to be 
the Lord of men, who had shown them the glory of dying to 



88 Acts xvii. 23 : Aiep^ofievog yap i 7rvtvfia avrov tv avr(p, BeutpovvTi 
tcai civaQtwp&v ra (Tej3d(TfiaTa v/xuiv. I KartiSu>\ov ovcrav tx\v ttoXiv. 
87 Acts xvii. 16: 7rapii)%vv6To to\ b8 Acts xvii. 21. 



476 St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 

self, and had promised to those who fought the good fight 
bravely a nobler bliss than the comforts of life could yield. 
The Stoic, cultivating a stern and isolated moral independence, 
heard of One whose own righteousness was proved by sub- 
mission to the Father in heaven, and who had promised to 
give his righteousness to those who trusted not in themselves 
but in him. To all, the announcement of a Person was much 
stranger than the publishing of any theories would have been. 
They would not concede to such a teacher the rank of a phi- 
losopher ; but, while some despised him as a mere babbler (a 
sower of words), 89 others confounded him with the introducers 
of foreign superstitions and strange deities. 90 The fact that 
the first count in the indictment of Socrates was his not believ- 
ing in the gods in whom the city believed, and introducing 
other new deities, has offered a coincidence too inviting to be 
neglected ; and it has been supposed by some that St. Paul 
was arraigned on a similar charge before the court of Areopa- 
gus. But the narrative of St. Luke does not give any indica- 
tion of a judicial process ; and it seems clear that " they took 
him and brought him to the Hill of Ares " with the simple 
object expressed in their own words, "We wish to learn what 
these things mean." 91 The result of Paul's contemptuous re- 
ception by the philosophers was that, instead of wasting his 
time in fruitless discussions with them in the Agora, he obtain- 
ed a public audience of the people for the Gospel message. 

§ 10. No locality of St. Paul's ministry is more deeply inter- 
esting or better known than this. The Agora of Athens lay 
in the deep valley enclosed between the Hill of the Muses (Mu- 
seum) on the south, and the Pnyx, Areopagus and Acropolis, 
which curve round it on the north. The Areopagus directly 
overhangs the north side of the Agora ; and a flight of sixteen 
steps, cut in the rock, leads up to the south-eastern summit of 
the rock, where the most venerable court held its sessions in 



80 (nrfpfioXSyog. 

90 Z&vwv dai/xoviiov KarayyiKtvg, 
Acts xvii. 18. The reason added, 
" because he preached to them Jesus 
and the Kesurrection, " has been un- 
derstood by some as implying that 
Jesus was taken for a god, and Anas- 
tasis for a goddess. 

91 Acts xvii. 19, 20. We have here 
one of the most striking examples of 
the vacillation of our translators in 
cases of uncertainty. The Greek text 
has the same phrase both in ver. 19 



and ver. 22, lirl tov Apeiov irayov, 
and kv fi'taif) tov 'Aptiov 7rayov, which 
must mean the same in both passages. 
But in the first we have "Areopa- 
gus" in the text, with "Mars' hill" 
in the margin, complicated by the 
note, "It was the highest court in 
Athens ;" and conversely, in verse 
22, we find "Mars' hill" in the 
text, with "the court of the Areopa- 
gites " in the margin. Mr. Lewin 
adheres to the view of a judicial pro- 
cess. 



A.D. 51 (?). 



PauVs Discourse at Athens. 



m 



the open air. At the head of the staircase is a rock-hewn 
bench, forming three sides of a quadrangle ; with two raised 
blocks, — the one on the eastern, the other on the western 
side, — the stations probably of the accuser and the accused. 
We may imagine the Apostle led up these steps and placed 
on one of the stones, whence, as from a pulpit, he might ad- 
dress the philosophers and distinguished persons who occu- 
pied the benches of the Areopagites, and the multitude on the 
steps and in the valley. 92 Here, directly opposite to the great 




1. Pnyx Ecclesi; 



Plan of Athens. 



2. Theseum. 3. Theatre of Dionysus. 

5. Temple of the Olympian Jove. 



4. Odeum of Pericles. 



gate-way {Propyked) of the Acropolis, and the western front 
of the Parthenon, — at a time, be it remembered, when the 
Panathenaic procession was still wont to carry up to the Vir- 
gin goddess her mystic robe, while the thousand altars of the 
city smoked daily with the offerings of all the world, — a Jew 
for the first time taught the people of Athens, and the foreign- 
ers who flocked to the University of the World, what their 
own religion testified of the true God — though darkened and 
dishonored by idolatry — and thence led them up to the full 
knowledge of Him whom they ignorantly worshiped. 



02 For further details, both of the locality and the court, see the Did, 
of the Bible, s. v. Areopagus. The court still existed at this time. 



478 



St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 



This " Sermon at Athens " — as it is commonly called — pre- 
sents a new type of the Apostle's discourses, and an example 
of the fittest mode of approaching the minds and hearts of 
heathens in every age. Addressing an audience of cultivated 
Greeks, he no more insulted them by saying at the outset — 
"Ye are too superstitious," than he belied their conscience 
and philosophy by declaring them utterly ignorant of God. 
His real exordium was, "Athenians, I observe you to be in all 
things eminently religious.'''' As an example of that tendency, 
which formed one chief spring of Hellenic vigor, to trace in 
every thing the hand of God, he singles out, from all those 
temples and shrines which he had been contemplating for sev- 
eral days, 93 an altar which bore the inscription TO GOD UN- 
KNOWN". 94 Whether set up in a spirit like that of the ec- 
clesiastical calendar, with its supplemental day for "All Saints," 
or whether connected with the esoteric worship of the myster- 
ies, or whether meant to expiate some calamity for which 
all the known gods had been propitiated in vain, as tradition 
says of one of these altars (for we know from eye-witnesses 
that there were several of them at Athens), 05 the inscrip- 
tion confessed a truth to which Greek poetry and philosophy, 
nay, the whole voice of heathenism, bears continual witness. 
Beneath the veil of polytheism, we always find some idea of a 
God who is above all the deities of the Pantheon, from whom 
gods, men, and nature alike derive their being. The Apostle, 
therefore, had the fullest right to use that inscription as the 



93 to. (TsfSdafiaTa vfidv, Acts xvii. 
.23. 

94 'AyvuxTTip Qifi. " The " is sup- 
plied by our translators, and the 
phrase, viewed as a title, admits of 
this sense, as well as of the indefinite 
article an, i. e., some unknown God. 
The verbal adjective, moreover, 
though often bearing the meaning 
given in our version, signifies literally 
Unknowable. Perhaps the spirit of 
the inscription may be given in the 
paraphrase : "To a Deity, who can 
not be recognized under the names or 
attributes of any of our gods." 

05 Paus. i. 4 ; Philostr. ViU ApolJ. 
vi. 3, who cites these altars as an in- 
stance of the prudence of paying re- 
spect to all deities. As to the origin 
of these altars, Eichhorn suggests that 
they may have been built before the 
art of writing was known (fiajftoi avuv- 



v/xoi), and subsequently inscribed dyv. 
Qe<t>. Neander's view is based on a 
passage of Diog. Laertius, who, in his 
Life of Epimenides, says that in the 
time of a plague, when they knew not 
what god to propitiate in order to 
avert it, he caused black and white 
sheep to be let loose from the Areopa- 
gus, and, wherever they lay down, to 
be offered to the respective divinities 
(r(<j Trpocn'jKovn 0£< t o), oOtv, adds Di- 
ogenes, tri Kal vvv ianv tvptiv Kara 
rovg 8r)fjiov<; tu>v 'AG. fiwfiovg avwv- 
v\xovc. On which Neander remarks, 
that on this or similar occasions al- 
tars might be dedicated to an Un- 
known God, since they knew not what 
god was offended and required to be 
propitiated. But the story has a sus- 
picious air of belonging to the class 
of inventions on the sole basis of the 
fact to be accounted for. 



A.D. 5i(?). Effect of St. PauVs Discourse. 



479 



foreshadowing of the truths he had now to proclaim — ■ 
"Whom therefore ye worship without knowing, Him declare 
I unto you." The simple grandeur of this revelation stood in 
marked contrast to the vain speculations of the philosophers, 
and re-echoed the primal truth set forth " in the beginning " 
of both covenants : — " God, that made the world, and all things 
that are therein " — " the Lord of heaven and earth " — " he 
giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ; and hath made 
of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of 
the earth :" — while, in harmony with the key-note of the whole 
discourse, he appeals to their own poets, who had already 
borne witness to this truth, " For we are also his off- 
spring." 9C 

Nothing, however, could be more alien to the Apostle's argu- 
ment than the inference that it mattered not how men wor- 
shiped this 

"Father of all, in every age, 
In every clime adored," 

and that every form of service under every name was equally 
acceptable, whether 

"By saint, by savage, or by sage, 
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord." 

From the universal fatherhood of God Paul deduces the folly 
of idolatry, as a degradation of that nature which man derives 
from God. If we are his offspring, made in his likeness, surely 
"we ought not to think that the Godhead (to QeIov) is like 
unto gold, or silver, or stone, on which a form is stamped by 
man's art and imagination." 97 As for his dwelling-place, Paul 
dared to repeat the same truth, as he stood facing the Parthe- 
non, which Solomon had proclaimed when he dedicated the 
Temple, that the Creator of the world, the Lord of heaven and 
earth, " dwelleth not hi temples made with hands, neither is he 
served by men's hands as though he (the giver of all) needed 
any thing to be added to him." J8 This ignorant worship be- 
longs to the dispensation of his forbearance, during which the 



96 Acts xvii. 28 : Tov yap /cat ykvoc. 
Ifffikv. The particular quotation is 
from Aratus, the celebrated astro- 
nomical poet of Soli in Cilicia, and 
therefore the countryman of St. Paul ; 
but the whole mythical poetry of the 
Greeks, from Homer and Hesiod 
downward, is full of passages which 
represent God (generally in the per- 
son of Jove) as , he universal Father 



and Creator. Perhaps the most 
striking is an anonymous verse quoted 
bv Plutarch (De Defect. Orac. c. 48, 
p. 436) : f 

Zevg dpxVi Zevc fxzooa, Aiog d' Ik 
TidvTa weXovTai. 

97 x a P (l YH- aTL T ' s X vr iQ KCCL tvOvfirjOfjcrt- 
o»c avQpwTrov. 

08 Or, " had any further need of any 
one," TrpoGCcofxeuog tivoq. 



480 St, PauVs Second Missionary Journey, Chap. XVI 

vague efforts of the heathen world — "feeling after God, if 
haply they might find him, though he is not far from any one 
of us, for in him we live, and move, and have our being " — 
taught them the same lesson of their helplessness that the Law 
was designed to teach the Jews. But now the time of that 
forbearance is accomplished, and Paul amid the temples of 
Athens repeats to all .the world the cry of the Baptist in the 
wilderness of Judaea — " God commandeth all men everywhere 
to repent." To enforce repentance, he declares that a day is 
appointed by God for the judgment of the world in righteous- 
ness — an idea not strange to Greek mythology ; and thus he 
leads up their minds to the very essence of his message, — 
that this judgment would be administered by a man whom 
God had set apart, giving to all men a pledge that he had done 
so, by raising him from the dead." 

But here the patience of his audience failed. With his 
wonted consummate prudence, Paul has not yet named the 
name against which rumors from the East had already preju- 
diced his hearers, —the Galilean peasant, who was, forsooth, to 
be exalted above Socrates and Plato, Zeno and Epicurus — 
Christ crucified, folly to the Greeks. But the mention of a 
resurrection was enough to provoke the scorn of the philoso- 
phers ; and all revolted from the claim of personal allegiance 
to a man appointed to exercise the authority of the one God 
in the judgment of the world. Some mocked — a mode of de- 
bate in which the Athenians of all ages were adepts — others 
thought they had had enough of the subject for the time, and 
promised Paul another audience, which he never seems to have 
had, and so he departed from among them. The intellectual 
capital of the world was not marked for distinction in the 
annals of Christianity. No Epistle or visit records auy fur- 
ther intercourse of Paul with Athens. But even here a few 
converts were gained ; some of them, as elsewhere, among the 
most intelligent men and the women of distinction ; classes 
represented by Dionysius the Areopagite, 100 and a woman 
named Damaris. These believers, if few in number, were 



09 It is well worth observing that 
Paul here opens the character of 
Christ as a Judge before speaking of 
him as a Saviour; the very same or- 
der which the Lord himself pursued 
in his first discourse to the unbeliev- 
ing Jews, John v. 

100 Aiovvaiog u 'Api07raytTT)c. The 
article seems to imply that he was 



an eminent Athenian, and probably 
known by this title in the Church. 
Eusebius makes him, on the authority 
of Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, to 
have been first bishop of Athens, 
where tradition places his martyr- 
dom. Some spurious writings are 
extant under his name. 



A.D. 52. 



St. Paul at Corinth. 



481 



firmly attached to the Apostle. 101 The narrative leaves it un- 
certain how long Paul stayed at Athens, and whether some per- 
secution or danger did not cause him to depart without wait- 
ing for Silas and Timothy, who rejoined him at Corinth. 102 

§11. Corinth, which now ranked as the Roman capital of 
Greece, is conspicuous not only in Europe, but above every 
other city in the world — Jerusalem and Antioch scarely ex- 
cepted — in connection with the history and teaching and writ- 
ings of St. Paul. It claims this distinction as the residence o 
the Apostle during his most critical contests, both with Jews 
and Greeks, in defense of the very essence of the Gospel ; as 
the place whence he wrote his first apostolic letters — the two 
Epistles to the Thessalonians ; as the Church to which he ad- 
dressed those other two Epistles, which not only contain the 
fullest directions on matters of Christian faith and practice — 
the order of the Church, and the principles regulating her 
spiritual gifts and her Christian liberality, her ministry and 
her sacraments, the supreme law of Christian love, and the 
clearest statement of the doctrine of the resurrection,- — but 
which reiterate, in terms unequaled hi human language for 
simplicity and force, the one great central truth of the whole 
Gospel — Jesus Christ and him crucified. 

There is, moreover, no scene of St. Paul's labors of which 
the local features are more clearly marked by allusions both 
in the Acts and the Epistles ; and the course of the city's his- 
tory will help to explain its choice to be the first chief home 
of Western Christianity. This ancient seat of the iEolian, 
and afterward of the Dorian race, stood just within that Isth- 



102 Acts xvii. 34 : KoWrjOevrtg ciary 
licivTivaav. 

102 Acts xviii. 1, 5. In 1 Thess. iii. 
2, Paul, writing of his being hindered 
from visiting the Thessalonians, says, 
"Wherefore, when we could no long- 
er forbear, we thought it good to be 
left at Athens alone, and sent Timothe- 
us .... to establish you," etc. ; and 
in ver. 6 he refers to the return of 
Timothy from this mission; and his 
report would naturally give occasion 
for the writing of this Epistle from 
Corinth. It has been inferred that 
Timothy joined Paul at Athens, and 
was sent back thence upon this mis- 
sion, from which he returned again 
and rejoined Paul at Corinth. The 
absence of anv mention of Silas in 1 
V 



Thess. iii. 2 does not exclude the sup- 
position that he also may have come 
to Paul at Athens, and been sent on 
some similar mission, perhaps to Phi- 
lippi ; and that thus Paul was left alone 
at Athens. All this is confirmed by 
the message to join him with all speed. 
Nor need it be supposed, from Acts 
xviii. 5, that both returned together to 
him at Corinth. They may have ar= 
rived about the same time. (See Dr. 
Howson's note to chap. xi. vol. i. pp. 
438-9, 4th ed.) Dr. Wordsworth in. 
fers, from 2 Cor. ix. 11 and Acts 
xviii. 5, that Timothy brought contri- 
butions to the support of the Apostle 
from the Macedonian churches, and 
thus released him from his continuous 
labor as a tent- maker. 



482 St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chai\ XVI. 

mus or neck of land, the name of which has been transferred 
to every narrow passage between two seas ; and this position 
enabled it to shut the only land route into the Peloponnesus, 
and to send forth its ships on both the seas which wash the 
eastern and western shores of Greece. Its command of the 
Isthmus was rendered perfect by that vast citadel of rock, the 
Acrocorinthus, which rises abruptly to a height of 2000 feet 
above the level of the sea, and the summit of which is so large 
as to have contained the original city, the Ephyra of Homer. 
The prospect from this eminence is one of the most celebrated 
in the world, embracing a panoramic view of the mountains of 
the Morea and the Corinthian Gulf, with the ranges that skirt 
its opposite shore, terminating in the snowy heights of Parnas- 
sus ; while on the east, beyond the Saronic Gulf, dotted with 
its islands, the hills of Attica and the Acropolis of Athens are 
distinctly visible at a distance of 45 miles. Immediately be- 
low the Acrocorinthus, to the north, was the city of Corinth, 
on a table-land descending in terraces to the low plain which 
lies between Cenchreae and Lechseum, the two harbors on the 
Saronic and Corinthian gulfs. 103 The eastern port invited the 
civilizing commerce of the Phoenicians, and from the western 
issued those earliest of Greek colonies, which the Corinthians 
founded on the Ionian Gulf, such as Ambracia, Corcyra 
( Corfu), and Apollonia ; while Potidsea and other cities attest 
her colonizing energy in the .^Egaean. The first trireme, or 
model Greek man-of-war, was said to have been built at Cor- 
inth, and the first naval battle on record was fought between 
her fleet and that of her own colony of Corcyra (about B.C. 664). 
The mythic fame of the ^Eolid race of Sisyphus was eclipsed in 
historic times by the tyrants Cypselus and Periander, under 
whom Corinth, enriched by commerce, became one of the earli- 
est seats of Grecian art. As an aristocratic republic, Corinth 
yielded only to Sparta the supremacy of the Dorian confeder- 



103 Among the localities of Corinth, 
our special attention is demanded by 
the Poseidonium, or sanctuary of Nep- 
tune, the scene of those Isthmian 
Games from which St. Paul borrows 
some of the most striking imagery of 
his Epistles, and especially of those to 
the Corinthians. It stood at a short 
distance N.E. of Corinth, on a plat- 
form above a ravine, along the edge 
of which ran the fortifications of the 
Isthmus, here at its narrowest width. 
To the south of the temple may still 
be seen the "stadium" in which, says 



the Apostle, all the foot-racers run, 
but one receives the prize (1 Cor. ix. 
24) ; and to the east those of the 
theatre, the probable scene of the 
pugilistic contest, the image of his 
own earnest fight with evil (ver. 26) ; 
and the coast is still fringed with 
the small green pine-trees that fur- 
nished for the victors that "corrupt- 
ible crown," the symbol of the "in- 
corruptible" promised to the Chris- 
tian athlete who keeps his body un- 
der and brings it into subjection 
(ver. 25). 



A.D. 52. 



Paul Works at Tent-Making. 



488 



acy, and was often able to force on her hesitating leader — as, 
for example, into the Peloponnesian war. The Macedonian 
usurpers, after crushing the opposition of Athens, Thebes, 
and Sparta, treated Corinth, in whose citadel they placed a 
garrison, as the capital of Greece ; and when Aratus had ex- 
pelled the Macedonian garrison, the city became the head of 
the Achaean League (b.c. 243). In this character she drew 
down, by an insult to the embassadors of Rome, that terrible 
destruction which Cicero describes as the extinction of the 
" Light of Greece " (b.c. 146). Excepting the temples and the 
buildings on the Acrocorinthus, the city lay in ruins for a cen- 
tury, till it was rebuilt by Julius Caesar in b.c. 46, and the new 
Colonia tFalia Corinthus was made the capital of the Roman 
province of Achaia and the residence of the proconsul. Rap- 
idly recovering its ancient wealth, as a place of great commer- 
cial and manufacturing enterprise, it regained also its infamous 
celebrity as the most dissolute, of Greek cities, and a chief seat 
of the worship of Aphrodite ; while at the same time it was 
second only to Athens in intellectual activity. 

Besides the native Greeks, the great number of Romans, as 
might have been expected in a colony so recently sent forth, 
is attested by the Latin names in the Epistle to the Romans, 
which St. Paul wrote from Corinth, during his second visit. 
The many Jewish residents, whom we always find in the Greek 
commercial cities, are indicated both by the narrative in the 
Acts, and by the Judaizing factions constantly referred to in 
the Epistles. Here then were gathered together all the ele- 
ments on which the Apostle could most desire to act ; and all 
of them in a state of vital activity, which formed a striking 
contrast to the " strenuous idleness " of Athens amid her old 
intellectual traditions. It was in places of living activity that 
St. Paul labored longest and most effectually, as formerly at 
Antioch, now at Corinth, and afterward at Ephesus. 

§ 1 2. While at Corinth, as before at Athens, Paul was wait- 
ing for the arrival of Silas and Timotheus, he gained unexpect- 
ed fellow-laborers in Aquila, a Jew of Pontus, 104 and his wife 
Pbjscilla, who had lately arrived from Italy, in consequence 
of the edict of Claudius, expelling all Jews from Rome. 105 



J 

104 It is noteworthy that Aquila, 
the Greek translator of the O. T., was 
also a native of Pontus ; hut it seems 
only a coincidence that Aquila was a 
family name of the Gens Pontia at 
Rome. 

105 Acts xviii. 2. Comp. Suet. 



Claud. 25 : " Judoeos, impulsore Chres- 
to assiduo tumultuantes, Roma ex- 
pulit;" — language which seems to 
imply that Christianity had already 
reached Rome, and excited the alarm 
of an emperor peculiarly hostile to 
"foreign superstitions," Whether 



484 



St. Paul's Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 



Finding them already established at Corinth in the same 
handicraft as his own — the making of Cilician or hair-cloth 
tents — Paul took up his abode and wrought with them, and 
we may imagine his converse during the hours of labor with 
these who soon became, to use his own affectionate phrase, 
" his helpers in Christ Jesus." loe Having thus lived together 
during the eighteen months of Paul's stay at Corinth, they 
shared his voyage to Ephesus. 107 Here they remained (while 
Paul went on to Jerusalem and Antioch) and instructed 
Apollos in the truth. Besides this intimate converse both 
with Paul and with Apollos, Aquila and Priscilla have the 
high distinction of affording a home to Christian churches in 
their house at Ephesus, and again at Rome when they were 
able to return thither. 108 To crown their eminence, they 
earned the thanks, not of Paul only, but of all the churches ol 
the Gentiles, by incurring the risk of martyrdom to save his 
life ; we know not upon what occasion ; perhaps it was at 
Ephesus. 109 

The labors of the Apostle at his craft of tent-making, with 
Aquila and Priscilla, are the most interesting if we admit the 



Aquila and Priscilla were already 
Christians, or whether they were con- 
verted by St. Paul, is a question still 
in dispute, and which scarcely seems 
capable of solution. The argument 
that Aquila is not called fia9r]rf]g 
(like Timothy in Acts xvi. 1) is too 
minute to be decisive. We have here 
an independent evidence of the date 
of Paul's arrival at Corinth. Edicts 
of this nature, for the expulsion of 
any class of foreigners from Rome, 
were almost always prompted by some 
disturbance in their native country. 
Now such an outbreak took place at 
Jerusalem, at the Feast of Taberna- 
cles, a.d. 51, and led to the recall of 
Ventidius Cumanus, and the appoint- 
ment of Felix as his successor. Al- 
lowing for the time required for the 
news to reach Rome, we may place the 
edict of Claudius at the beginning of 
a.d. 52, and the arrival of Aquila and 
Priscilla at Corinth about a month 
or six weeks later. If, then, Paul 
reached Corinth about February, a.d. 
52, his departure (after 18 months) 
would fall about August, a.d. 53 ; and 
this inference is confirmed by his re- 



lations, near the close of that period, 
with Gallio, whose arrival as pro- 
consul of Achaia may be placed, as 
Mr. Lewin has shown, about midsum- 
mer, a.d. 53. (Fasti Sacri, Introd. 
ch. viii. pp. 62-G4.) 

106 Acts xviii. 2, 3 : comp. Rom. 
xvi. 3. *~$ 

107 Acts xviii. 24. 

108 In the First Epistle to theCorinth- 
ians, written from Ephesus during St. 
Paul's third journey (a.d. 56 or 57), 
he sends a salutation from Aquila 
and Priscilla, " with the church that 
is in their house" (1 Cor. xvi. 19); 
and in that to the Romans, written 
from Corinth (a.d. 57 or 58), he 
greets Aquila and Priscilla, and "like- 
wise the church that is in their house " 
(Rome. xv. 3-5). In this passage, as 
well as in the last greeting sent to 
them, probably at Ephesus (2 Tim.' 
iv. 19), the name of the wife is Pris-* 
ca. There is a vague tradition that 
they suffered martyrdom by behead- 
ing. 

109 Rom. xvi. 4 : oinviq inrkp rijg 
'ipvxvG /-tow tuv kctVTwv Tpdy^fKov vTn* 
Oijicav. 



A.D. 52. His Reasons for this Course. 485 

supposition that this was the period of pressing ivant, 110 from 
which he was relieved by the arrival of " the brethren " (Silas 
and Timotheus) from Macedonia with contributions, especial- 
ly those of the Philippians. 111 This seasonable contribution 
aided him in his resolve to keep himself from being burden- 
some to the converts whom he was now about to gather from 
the Gentiles. It was not the proud assertion of personal inde- 
pendence that dictated this course ; but reasons peculiar to 
his position among the corrupt Greeks of Corinth and Achaia 6 
Nowhere does he insist so forcibly, as in writing to this very 
church, on the law that " no man goeth a warfare on his own 
charges " — that " the ox that treadeth out the corn must not 
be muzzled "—that " so hath the Lord ordained, that they 
which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel." 112 He 
tells them plainly that his refraining from using this power was 
the only disadvantage they had in comparison with other 
churches; 113 nay, with his fondness for bold expressions, he 
says, " I spoiled other churches, taking wages of them for my 
ministry among you. 114 It is in no spirit of sarcastic irony that 
he pleads — "forgive me this wrong" — for he calls God to wit- 
ness that no want of love to them dictated this course, the 
motive for which he plainly adds : — " For what I do, I also 
will do, that I may cut off occasion from them, that desire 
occasion [and challenge them to this proof] — wherein they 
boast, let them be found like us." 115 Pie foresaw that, among 
the innumerable pretenders who, in that rich and frivolous 
province, made a gain of religion, there would soon arise some 
to abuse the Christian name ; those whom he afterward 
branded as " false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming 
themselves into the Apostles of Christ," even as Satan, whose 
ministers they were, transformed himself into an angel of 
light. These men even boasted of the contributions they 
exacted, as a proof of their superiority to the Apostle who 
would receive none. 116 But he was content to suiter this ap- 
parent humiliation, and to take this for his sole reward — 
" That, when I preach the Gospel, I may make the Gospel of 
Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the 

2 Cor. xi. 9 : vaTepnQeig, varepn- \ donia " — the Philippians (and they 



alone) ''communicated with him as 
concerning giving and receiving 
(Phil. iv. 15). 

112 1 Cor. ix. 7-1 1. 



pa, literally, being at the last re 
source. 

111 This view of Dr. Howson (St. 
Paul, vol. i. ch. xi.) receives some 
confirmation from the fact that, from i 113 2 Cor. xii. 13. 
the very first of St. Paul's labors in I m 2 Cor. xi. 8. 
Greece — "in the beginning of the 11B 2 Cor. xi. 12, 13, 
Gospel, when I departed from Mace- I n6 2 Cor. xi. 21. 



486 St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVL 

Gospel." 117 " Nevertheless, we have not used this power; 
6ut suffer all things, lest we should hinder the Gospel of 
Christ. 11 * He resolved not to bring upon the Gospel the scorn 
of the selfish and quick-witted Greeks, not to sacrifice one 
iota of the witness which they were compelled to bear to his 
asseveration — " I seek not yours but you " 119 — " As the truth 
of Christ is in me," so vehemently does he asseverate, — no 
man shall stop me of this boasting in all the region of Achaia. 12 ^_ 
§ 13. With such resolves, from his very first arrival ' at 
Corinth, did Paul work daily with Aquila and Priscilla. But, 
when the rest of the Sabbath came round, he went into the 
synagogue, according to his custom, and labored to persuade 
both the Jews and the Greeks who happened to be present. 121 
Some weeks passed thus, till the arrival of Silas and Timothy 
from Macedonia not only gave a new impulse to the Apostle, 
but marked a crisis in his career. Our abiding sense of the 
devotedness of St. Paul makes it hard to realize that he also 
was subject to fits of energy and depression, the latter being 
connected (it would seem) with that bodily infirmity, the 
" thorn in the flesh," which buffeted him as a messenger of 
Satan. He tells the Corinthians that " he was with them in 
weakness, and fear, and much trembling ;" 122 and his adver- 
saries were able, after his departure, to strike at his influence 
with the taunt : — " His letters are weighty and powerful ; but 
his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible." 12S 
But this constraint, in whatever it consisted, was now swal- 
lowed up in that " constraint of the word " 124 — that over- 
whelming pressure of heart and conscience, binding his whole 
nature to his work amid all his infirmities, which St. Luke 
expresses by the very word used by the Lord himself — " I 
have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I straitened 
till it be accomplished," 125 — which Paul himself describes in 
the most powerful language ever used by man to utter human 
motives : — " For the love of Christ constraineth us; 1 ™ because 
we thus judge, that, if One died for all, then were all dead ; 
and that he died for all, that they which live should not 
henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for 
them, and rose again." This overwhelming sense that " Christ 
is all and in all," this full meaning of the Gospel of Christ's 



117 1 Cor. ix. 18. 
218 1 Cor. ix. 12. 
319 2 Cor. xii. 14. 
120 2 Cor. xi. 10. 
l2: Acts xviii. 4. 



124 Acts xviii. 5 : <rvve ix* to t<j> \oy(^ 
seems clearly the true reading, not r<£ 
irv'i.v\iaTi. 

125 Luke xii. 50 : ?rwc avv'hx o \ mi k' w £ 
ov reXeaOy. 



125 1 Cor. i. 3. 12S 2 Cor. x. 10. | 120 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 : avv6 X ei wag. 






A.D. 52. PauVs Ministry at Corinth. 487 

death and resurrection, seems to have come upon Paul's mind 
almost with the force of a new revelation, in the light of which 
he formed the resolution : — " I determined not to know any 
thing among you, save Jesus Christ a^t) him crucified." 12t 
It had an equal influence on the manner as on the matter of 
his preaching. Paul knew that " Christ had sent him to 
preach the Gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the c7'oss 
of Christ should be made of none effect." All the arts of 
rhetoric and philosophic argument, the " excellency of speech 
and wisdom," the " enticing words of man's wisdom," were 
abjured by the very Apostle who was qualified to use them 
on the very field that invited and provoked their display, in 
order to give place to the "manifestation of spirit and of 
power," to prove that the simplicity of preaching was God's 
instrument for saving them that believe, and to assure the 
converts that " their faith was not in the wisdom of man, but 
in the power of God." Great as was the temptation to grati- 
fy "the Jews who asked for a sign, and the Greeks who 
sought after wisdom," Paul now saw that any such concession 
would mar the whole simplicity of the Gospel, and he summed 
up the message of Christ's heralds in these words : — " But we 
preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, 
and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are 
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, 

AND THE W T ISDOM OF GOD." 12B 

" We " — the Apostles and Evangelists then — the ministers 
of the Gospel in every age — but, at Corinth in particular, Paul 
and the two associates whose aid he thus owns : — " The Son 
of God, even Jesus Christ,, who was preached among you by us, 
by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was in him yea and in 
him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." 129 The sense of 
having their help seems to have given that impulse which 
caused Paul to testify first to the Jews Jesus the Christ. 130 
His new plainness provoked the same animosity as at every 
former step ; and when, like those at Antioch in Pisidia, they 
opposed themselves and blasphemed, Paul shook his raiment, 
and said to them, in the words of their own j)rophet, " Your 
blood be upon your own heads ! Pure from it, I will hence- 
forth go to the Gentiles." 131 From that day he forsook the 
synagogue, his first act of open separation from Judaism, but 
continued to meet his own flock close by, in the house of a 



127 1 Cor. ii. 2. 

^ 8 1 Cor. i. 23, 24, ii. 5. 

123 2 Cor. i. 20. :30 Acts xviii. 5. 

131 Ezek. xxxiii. 4 : Acts xviii. 6. 7. 



There is no reason to believe that 
Paul transferred his abode from the 
house of Aquila and Priscilla to that 
of Justus. 



488 St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 

proselyte named Justus. He was followed by Crispus, the 
chief ruler of the synagogue, whose baptism, with his whole 
house, by the Apostle himself, formed an exception to Paul's 
usual practice, for " Christ " — he says — " sent me not to bap- 
tize, but to preach the Gospel." 132 The like exception was 
made in favor of Gaius, whose name stands recorded in 
Scripture as a great example of Christian hospitality ; 13s as 
well as for the household of Stephanas, afterward described 
as " the first-fruits of Achaia, who had devoted themselves to 
the ministry of the saints." 134 

The news of this division among the Jews, and of the 
Apostle's turning to the Gentiles, spread through the city ; 
and many of the Corinthians believed and were baptized, 
probably by Silvanus and Timotheus. That this movement 
roused anew the extreme fury of the Jews, may be inferred 
from Paul's referring to their opposition with vehement in- 
dignation in his First Epistle to the Thesscdonians, which 
was written from Corinth soon after the arrival of Silvanus 
and Timotheus : — " Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their 
own prophets, and have persecuted us ; and they please not 
God, and are contrary to all men : forbidding us to speak to 
the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins 
alway ; for the wrath is come upon tfrem to the uttermost." 186 
It was at this crisis that the Apostle was favored with another 
of those supernatural visions, which from the very day of his 
conversion had directed and cheered his course. The Lord, 
whom he had seen in the way to Damascus, now spoke to him 
in the night, and said to him, " Be not afraid, but speak, and 
hold not thy peace : for I am with thee, and no man shall .set 
on thee to hurt thee : for I have much people in this city." 
Thus encouraged, he remained in Corinth, teaching the word 
of God, for a year and six months. During this time he kept 
up his intercourse with the churches of Macedonia ; and the 
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians was sent not long after 
the First, chiefly to correct the misapprehensions which some 
had founded upon the first, respecting the speedy approach of 
" the day of the Lord," Christ's second advent. 138 

first-fruits of the Jewish converts, and 
Epsenetus of the Gentiles? It de- 
serves notice how large a number of 
the Corinthian Christians are men- 
tioned bv name in St. Paul's Epistles. 

135 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16. 

1 G Concerning the teaching of these 
Epistles, which has already been re- 
ferred to in connection with the 



132 1 Cor. i. 14-17. 

133 Kom. xvi, 23. 

134 1 Cor. xvi. 15-17. From the 
application of the same phrase, " the 
first-fruits of Achaia unto Christ," to 
Epainetus, Dr. Howson infers that 
Epaenetus was probably of the house- 
hold of Stephanas. May not Ste- 
phanas and his house have been the 







A.D. 52. 



PauVs Earliest Epistles. 



These arc the earliest of St. Paul's Epistles which have 
come down to us ; though the salutation at the close of the 
Second Epistle seems to imply that the Apostle was already 
in habitual correspondence with the churches he had plant- 
ed. 137 That salutation, moreover, supplies a fact of the greatest 
importance in connection with St. Paul's Epistles : — " The 
salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in 
every Epistle : so I write." 138 The habit of employing an 
amanuensis is so frequent that we need not speculate whether 
St. Paul adopted it on account of his " infirmity in the flesh." 
He used his own hand, partly to give that attestation to the 
genuineness of his Epistles which we find already not to have 
been superfluous, 13s) partly to convey that sense of personal re- 
gard which we associate with a great man's autograph ; and 
sometimes he adds to the salutation in his own hand state- 
ments to which he desires thus to give the greatest emphasis. 
We can scarcely doubt that the magnificent doxology which 
follows the salutation in the Epistle to the Romans was of 
this kind ; 14 ° and Paul has given us an example beyond all 
doubt in the close of the Epistle to the Galatians. After dic- 
tating his unusually severe rebukes of the Judaizing teachers 
who had beguiled the unstable Gauls, he takes the pen into 
his own hand ; but, before he adds the salutation, he uses it to 
record the final condemnation of their hollow motives, and the 
final assertion of that doctrine of the cross, to which this very 



Church of Thessalonica, see further 
in the Diet, of the Bible, art. " Tiies- 
salonians, Epistles to." 

137 The two Epistles to the Thcssa- 
lonians alone belong to the present 
Missionary Journey. The Epistles 
to the Galatians, Romans, and Co- 
rinthians, were written during the 
next journey. Those to Philemon, 
the Colossians, the Ephesians, and 
the Philippians, belong to the captiv- 
ity at Home. With regard to the 
Pastoral Epistles, there are consider- 
able difficulties, which require to be 
discussed separately. Since the pub- 
lication of Paley's Horce Paulince, im- 
portant attempts have been made to 
estimate the Epistles of St. Paul more 
broadly, by considering them in their 
mutual order and relations, and in 
their bearing upon the question of the 
development of the writer's teaching. 
Such attempts must lead to a better 
V 2 



understanding of the Epistles them- 
selves, and to a finer appreciation of 
the Apostle's nature and work. It is 
notorious that the. order of the Epis- 
tles in the New Testament is not their 
real or chronological order. The 
mere placing of them in their true 
sequence throws considerable light 
upon the history ; and, happily, the 
time of the composition of the more 
important Epistles can be stated with 
sufficient certainty. 

138 2 Thess. in! 17: comp. 1 Cor. 
xvi. 21; Col. iv. 18. Rom. xvi. 22 
gives incidentally another example, 
in the mention of the name of the 
amanuensis : — " I, Tertius, who wrote 
this Epistle." 

139 2 Thess. ii. 2. And the saluta- 
tion itself follows immediately upon 
an emphatic claim of obedience to 
his word by this Epistle (iii. 14). 

110 Rnm. xvii. 25-27. 



490 



St PauVs Second Missionary Journey. 



Chap. XVI 



form of reiteration adds new emphasis. Nay, more — and it 
is deeply interesting that such a personal trait of the Apostle 
has been preserved to us — he appeals to the large, bold hand' 
writing, so characteristic of his fervid temperament, as a proof 
of the emphasis with which he wrote : — " See in what large 
letters I have written to you with mine own hand !" 141 It 
was in those large characters that he traced the words, " God 
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ " — " In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any 
thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." 142 

Two general remarks relating to St. Paul's Letters may find 
a place here. (1.) There is no reason to assume that the ex- 
tant letters are all that the Apostle wrote. On the contrary, 
there is a strong presumption, and some slight positive evi- 
dence, that he wrote many which have not been preserved. 
(2.) We must be on our guard against concluding too much, 
from the contents and style of any Epistle, as to the fixed 
bent of the Apostle's whole mind at the time when it was 
written. We must remember that the Epistles to the Thessa- 
lonians were written while St. Paul was deeply absorbed in 
the peculiar circumstances of the Corinthian Church ; and that 
the Epistles to the Corinthians were written between those to 
the Galatians and the Romans. These facts are sufficient to 
remind us of the versatility of the Apostle's mind ; — to show 
us how thoroughly the feelings and ideas suggested to him by 
the circumstances upon which he was dwelling had the power 
to mould his utterances. 

§ 14. At Corinth, as afterward at Ephesus, the residence of 
Paul gave occasion to one of those early outbreaks against Chris- 
tianity at great seats of Greek civilization and Roman power, 
which portended future persecution. But the time had not 
yet come when the Gentiles surpassed the hostility of the 
Jews; and the present danger was averted by the wise and 
fair, if somewhat contemptuous, toleration of a philosophic 
governor. Gallio, 143 the proconsul of Achaia under Claudius, 



141 Gal. vi. 11 : l^ers 7rr]\iicoig vjuv 
ypc'ipjiauiv 'iypcc^a t?j ijxy X (L P<- ^° 
sense is altogether lost in the A.V. 
We can hardly fail to see, by way of 
contrast, an affecting allusion to the 
constraint under which he wrote, with 
his arm bound to that of the soldier 
who kept him, in the salutation to the 
Colossians (iv. 18): — "The saluta- 
tion by the hand of me Paul. Re- 
member my bonds.'''' 



142 Gal. vi. 11-18. 

143 His full name, Junius Annnsus 
Gallio, was derived from his adoption 
into the family of the rhetorician Lu- 
cius Junius Gallio. Gallio appears 
to have resigned the government of 
Achaia on account of the climate not 
agreeing with his health (Seneca, Ep. 
civ.) ; and we know that he was again 
at Rome in a.d. 54. The character 

i of him which his brother gives is in 



A D. 53. 



Paul Leaves Corinth 



491 



was the brother of the great Seneca, and, like him, imbued 
with learning from his infancy. When, therefore, the Jews 
brought Paul before his tribunal, on the charge of persuading 
men to worship God contrary to the law, Gallio stopped the 
case, just as Paul was opening his mouth to defend himself, 
declaring that he would be a judge of actual crimes, but not 
of doctrine, and names, and of their law. Natural indignation 
at this light treatment of the sacred Name has blinded many 
Christians to the excellence of Gallio's conduct as a magistrate, 
administering the traditional tolerant policy of Rome. But 
the " careless Gallio " stands in as honorable contrast to the 
Philippian duumvirs, as Festus does to the venal brother of 
Pallas. Even when he suffered the Corinthian spectators — 
whether they were favorable to St. Paul, or actuated only by 
anger against the Jews — to seize on Sosthenes, the ruler of 
the synagogue, and to beat him before the tribunal, Gallio's calm 
indifference may have saved Corinth from one of those fright- 
ful tumults between Greeks and Jews which desolated such 
cities as Alexandria and Caesarea. 144 The result of the tumult 
seems to have been favorable to the influence of Paul, who re- 
mained a good while at Corinth before he took his leave of 
the brethren and sailed for Syria. 145 



accordance with that which we might 
infer from the narrative in the Acts : 
Nemo mortalium mild tarn dulcis est, 
gaam hie omnibus: and again, Gal- 
lionem fratrem meum, quern nemo non 
parum amat, etiam qui amarc plus non 
potest. And Statins says, Hoc jilus 
quam Senecam dedisse mundo, ant dul- 
cem generasse GalUonem. He is said 
to have been put to death by Nero, 
"as well as his brother Seneca, but 
not at the same time " (Winer); but 
there is apparently no authority for 
this. Tacitus describes him (Ann. 
xv. 73) as fratris morte pnvidum, et 
pro sua incoiumitate supplicem ; and 
Jerome, in the Chi-onicle of Eusebius, 
says that he committed suicide in 
a.d. 65. Of Seneca's works, the De 
Ira is dedicated to Gallio. 

144 Acts xviii. 12-17. Some com- 
mentators give a different color to 
the whole transaction, supposing Sos- 
thenes to be a Christian ; but the 
language of St. Luke seems clearly 
to imply that Sosthenes was, at this 
time at least, a prime mover of the 



Jewish tumult in his character of 
" chief ruler of the synagogue " («p%i- 
avvayuyog), in which office he may 
have succeeded Crispus. If he is the 
same person mentioned as "Sosthe- 
nes our brother " (1 Cor. i. 1), he may 
have been converted at a later period, 
and have accompanied Paul to Ephe- 
sus, whence the Epistle was written. 
But the name was too common for 
much stress to be laid on the coinci- 
dence. 

145 Acts xviii. 1 8 : npogfiE ivag t)fie- 
pag iKavdg. Mr. Lewin argues that 
the shaving of Paul's head at Cen- 
chrese was a ceremony marking the 
termination of the vow, which we may 
suppose to have been made at the 
time of the Jews' assault upon him ; 
and as a vow could not be made for 
less than a month, we may assume 
that the assault was made soon after 
Gallio's arrival, presuming on the un- 
tried temper of the .new proconsul, 
say in July, and that St. Paul's de- 
parture was in August, in time to 
reach Jerusalem for the Feast of 



492 



St. PauVs Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 



§ 15. The Apostle was accompanied by Aquila and Priscilla 
on his departure from Cenckreae, the eastern harbor of Corinth, 
which lay on the Saronic Gulf. 146 But before they sailed, a 
ceremony was performed which lias given rise to much con- 
troversy. The impression on the reader's mind is that Paul 
himself shaved his head at Cenchrea3, because he had a vow ; 
but eminent commentators hold the view, which is at least 
equally consistent with the grammatical order of the passage, 
that the ceremony was performed by Aquila. 147 In either case 
we see the Apostle — as on a subsequent occasion 14a — sanction- 
ing if not practicing customs which proved that he was in no 
eager haste to cut himself off from conformity with his Jew- 
ish brethren in things indifferent. The question, whether his 
conduct in these two cases furnishes an example to Christians 
in support of the practice of vows, is too much a matter of 
casuistry to be discussed here. 

The Apostle's destination was Jerusalem; but the ship in 
which he sailed followed the most common route across the 
JEgsean from Corinth to Ephesus. " These were the capitals 
of the two flourishing and peaceful provinces of Achaia and 



Tabernacles, a.d. 53. As to the other 
view, which regards this Feast as the 
Pentecost of a.d. 54, there is nothing 
in the narrative that forbids our giv- 
ing a wider extent both to the period 
between Gallio's arrival and the tu- 
mult, and to the r'lfxspag licavag after 
the latter event ; but we may well be- 
lieve that Paul would not presume 
long on the protection of the procon- 
sul against a new outbreak. As to 
the time required for the voyage, Mr. 
Lewin observes that in a.d. 58 Paul 
sailed from PhiUppi at the close of 
the Passover, and reached Jerusalem 
before Pentecost, having consumed 
44 days on his way. But as he now 
sailed from Corinth direct for Jeru- 
salem, the space between the begin- 
ning of August and September 16 
(the Feast of Tabernacles this year) 
would be sufficient. 

146 The town, of which the insig- 
nificant ruins retain the ancient name 
in the form of Kikri, was a place of 
considerable importance, being the 
emporium for the trade of Corinth 
with the East, as Lechaeum, on the 
Corinthian Gulf, was with Italy and 



the West. Cenchreas was 70 stadia 
(between 8 and 9 miles) from Corinth, 
by a road the sides of which were 
lined with tombs and a grove of cy- 
presses. At the time of St. Paul's 
Third Missionary Journey, Cenchreaj 
had a church, the deaconess of which, 
Phoebe, is named in the Epistle to the 
Romans (xvi. 1). 

147 Acts xviii. 18. The latter view, 
held by Grotius, has been defended 
by Dr. Howson (vol. ii. c. xii.), whose 
arguments are replied to by Dean 
Alford (N. T. in loc). Vows were 
often taken, in form akin to that of 
the Nazarite, but of temporary obli- 
gation. Not the least hint is given 
as to the object of the present vow; 
unless we connect it with Paul's haste 
to reach Jerusalem in time for the 
approaching feast (ver. 21); for 
Josephus mentions a vow which in- 
cluded the cutting off the hair, and 
the beginning of an abstinence from 
wine 30 days before offering a sacri- 
fice. For the discussion of the sub- 
ject, sec Diet, of the Bible, art. Naz- 
arite, vol. ii. p. 472. 

J " Acts xxi. 24. 



A.D. 53 or 54. Paul at Ephesus and Jerusalem. 493 

Asia, and the two great mercantile towns on the opposite sides 
of the sea. If resemblances may be suggested between the 
ocean and the Mediterranean, and between ancient and mod- 
ern times, we may say that the relation of these cities of the 
Eastern and Western Greeks to each other was like that of 
New York and Liverpool. Even the time taken up by the 
voyage constitutes a point of resemblance. Cicero says that, 
on his eastward passage, which was considered a long one, he 
spent fifteen days, and that his return was accomplished in 
thirteen." 14 ° Either the ship was bound further for Syria, or 
Paul found another vessel on the point of sailing, so that he 
only made a few days' stay at the city to which we shall 
presently return as a chief place of his abode. But in this 
short interval, and doubtless on the Sabbath, he went into the 
synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews. They gave an ear- 
nest of that readiness which they soon after showed to hear 
the Word, by entreating Paul to remain some time with them ; 
but, bent as he was on keeping the approaching feast at Jeru- 
salem, he bade them farewell, with the promise, soon so am- 
ply redeemed, " I will return again unto you, if God will." 
It was no small consolation for his departure, that Aquila and 
Priscilla remained behind, apparently at Paul's express de- 
sire. 150 Their house became the home of the infant church of 
Ephesus, and themselves the instructors of Apollos. 

§ 1 6. Meanwhile, Paul pursued his voyage to Caesarea ; and, 
landing there, went up to Jerusalem, as he had proposed. 
That this visit was but hasty, seems indicate'd by the brevity 
of the record : — " And when he had landed at Caesarea, and 
gone up and saluted the church, he went down to Antioch." 151 
But the Apostle's eagerness to pay the visit may assure us of 
its great importance, which we can understand in the light of 
his past and approaching career. His salutation to the Jew- 
ish Christians, assembled at the feast, would include a full 
account of the reception of the Gospel by the Gentiles in Ro- 
man colonies and Greek capitals ; and the report, while glad- 
dening the sincere believers, and confirming their faith in the 
full salvation of the Gentiles, would provoke new suspicion 
and hostility from the Judaizers. Foreseeing, we may feel 
sure, his great coming conflict with these " false brethren un- 
awares crept in," he would attach more importance than ever 
to a full understanding and hearty loving union with James 
and the true Christians at Jerusalem. And, while they learn- 



149 Conybeare and Howson, vol. i. I 150 Acts xviii. 19 : KUKdvovg kcitsXi- 
c. xii. ttcv avTov. 151 Acts xviii. 22. 



494 St. Paul's Second Missionary Journey. Chap. XVI. 

ed to appreciate his work, what he saw upon this visit would 
quicken his desire to cement that union by the means on which 
he ever insists, " the fellowship of giving and receiving," and 
to fulfill the old injunction with which his brother Apostles 
had sent him forth to the Gentiles : — " Only they would that 
we should remember the poor, the same which I also was for- 
ward to do." 152 For Judaea was now being ground down to 
those extremities which soon provoked the great rebellion; 
and Felix, who had arrived as the successor of Ventidius 
Cumanus about midsummer, a.d. 53 had entered on his course 
of servile despotism and rapacity. 153 

From this visit the Apostle went forth to oppose every art 
by which the Judaizers tried to rob the Gentiles of their 
Christian liberty, but to insist no less earnestly on the duty of 
the Gentile converts to contribute of their wealth to their 
suffering Jewish brethren. The contributions made by Mace- 
donia and Achaia for the poor of the saints in Jerusalem be- 
comes a prominent object of his labors. He represents it as a 
debt due from the former to the latter : " For if the Gentiles 
have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty 
is also to minister to them in carnal things." And it was on 
the very service of carrying these contributions to Jerusalem, 
at the Pentecost four years later, that no remonstrances could 
deter him from risking his liberty and life. 154 

The eagerness of the Apostle, on the latter occasion, to be 
at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, raises a presumption 
that this too was the " feast " which he was now so eager to 
keep at Jerusalem. (The Pentecost of a.d. 54 fell on May 
31.) This festival, rather than the Passover, had now ac- 
quired the distinctive appellation of " the feast" It was that 
to which the greatest number of the Jews went up, after the 
full ingathering of the harvest ; and at which, therefore, Paul 
would find the largest gathering of the brethren at Jerusalem. 
This view is supported by arguments derived from the season 
during which navigation was suspended, and the length of the 
voyage from Ephesus to Caesarea. 155 On this view it would be 
in the early summer of a.d. 54 that Paul returned to Antioch, 



152 Gal. ii. 10. 

153 See chap, v., pp. 120, 121. 

154 Rom. xv. 25-27; 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 
2 ; 2 Cor. viii. 1, ix. 2, 12 ; Acts xix. 
21, xx. 3, 1G, xxi. 4, 10-17. 

155 Wiescler, pp. 48-50. The course 
of a similar voyage is more particu- 
larly described on St. Paul's return | feast. 



from his Third Missionary Journey 
(Acts xxi. 1-3). Dr. Howson ob- 
serves that only very favorable weather 
would enable Paul to accomplish his 
purpose, and finds in the brevity of 
the visit to Jerusalem a hint that it 
was not reached in time for the 



Chap. XVI. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



495 



for the last time, having completed his Second Missionary 
Journey. This epoch in the Apostle's life coincides nearly 
with one equally marked in civil history. It was on the 12th 
of October, a.d. 54, that the Emperor Claudius was murdered 
by his infamous consort Agrippina, and succeeded by the young 
Nero, a name equally hateful in the annals of the Church and 
of the world. 

Mr. Lewin, however, arguing chiefly from the general tenor 
of the chronological data which have been noticed in the 
course of the narrative, — and especially from those affecting 
Paul's stay at Corinth, — holds this feast to have been the 
Feast of Tabernacles of a.d. 53, which fell on Sept. 16. The 
distinctive name of " the Feast " was certainly applied not 
only to the Pentecost, but also to the Feast of Tabernacles ; 
which, falling at the conclusion of all the agricultural labors of 
the year, seems to have been as much frequented by the native 
Jews, the class whom Paul would be especially anxious to 
meet on this occasion. This hypothesis, moreover, by allow- 
ing us to place the commencement of Paul's Third Circuit at 
the very beginning of a.d. 54, seems to agree best with the 
dates of the Apostle's three years' residence at Ephesus. 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



(A.) THE VISIT OF GALA- 
TIANS II. 

Tins is the best place to examine 
the opinion maintained by Mr. Lewin, 
that the visit of Acts xviii, and not 
the mission to Jerusalem on the con- 
troversy about the circumcision of the 
Gentiles (Acts xv.), was the visit 
which Paul paid to Jerusalem four- 
teen years after that which ensued 
upon his conversion (Galatians ii. 1). 
Besides the chronological argument 
from the mode of computing the four- 
teen years and the preceding three 
years, Mr. Lewin relies on the object 
which, as above shown, this visit had 



— to establish the unity of the Jew- 
ish and Gentile churches by exhib- 
iting the harmony between the Apos- 
tles at Jerusalem and the Apostles 
to the Gentiles. This great purpose 
would be a worthy object of that 
"revelation" by which Paul tells us 
that he went up, and in which Mr. 
Lewin finds the motive of the asser- 
tion, " I mvst by all means keep this 
feast that cometh at Jerusalem" 
(Acts xviii. 21). 

But these arguments seem by no 
means conclusive. After Avhat was 
said above of the interview be- 
tween Paul and Barnabas. and the 
[ other Apostles, it seems only neces- 



496 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XVI. 



Sary to observe, in one word, how the 
whole tone of the Apostle implies an 
earlier stage of his ministry (Gal. ii.). 
Is it possible that after the great set- 
tlement "agreed to at Jerusalem had 
been confirmed by his successes in 
Galatia, Macedonia and Greece, he 
2ould have felt it necessary to " com- 
municate the Gospel privately to them 
Df reputation," or have felt any rem- 
nant of doubt "lest that by any 
means he should run or had run in 
vain?" — nay, is not the very idea of 
such privacy at this period of his 
career manifestly absurd ? In truth, 
it seems easy to draw a clear and 
most important distinction between 
the Apostle's relation to the church 
at Jerusalem at these two periods of 
his career. On the former occasion 
he was beset by the new doubts 
raised by the Judaizers ; and he had 
to bear the responsibility of the cause 
entrusted to him by the church of 
Antioch : " Without were fighting, 
and within were fears." But on the 
second journey he had gone forth as 
the bearer of the great decision made 
at Jerusalem, and he returned laden 
with fruits which that decision had 
aided him to reap in Macedonia and 
Greece, where the enforcement of the 
Mosaic Law would have been a fatal 
obstacle to success. Then his own 
mind needed a final confirmation in 
the principles of Christian liberty 
which he had adopted in dealing 
with the Gentiles ; now, all that re- 
mained was to confirm the Jewish 
Christians in the same principles. 
All this shows the motive of his anx- 
iety to revisit Jerusalem, but is quite 
inconsistent with the tone of Gala- 
tians ii. 

The strongest and weakest points 
of Mr. Lewin's argument remain to 
be noticed. He connects the collec- 
tion for the poor saints at Jerusalem 
with the injunction laid by the Apos- 
tles at Jerusalem upon Paul and 



Barnabas, " that we should remember 
the poor" (Galatians. ii. 11). Now it 
must be admitted that the Third Cir- 
cuit is the earliest occasion on which 
we trace those systematic collections 
which so fully carried out this prin- 
ciple. But does it follow that th$ 
principle itself was only agreed upon 
at this time ; nay, that it had not 
been acted upon before? The an- 
swer is at hand in the Apostle's com- 
ment, "The same which I also was 
forward to do." It was the principle 
of his whole career, and not of one 
stage of that career only. It had 
been anticipated by the church at 
Antioch in the relief sent to Jerusa- 
lem during the famine, and it now 
becomes more prominent than ever, 
because, from the causes already 
mentioned, the wants of the Jewish 
Christians become now more than 
ever pressing. But, moreover, this 
injunction was laid by the Apostles 
at Jerusalem upon Paul and Barna- 
bas : Paul had gone up by revelation 
to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking 
Titus with them ; and it was to Paul 
and Barnabas that the Apostles gave 
the right hand of fellowship, that they 
should go to the Gentiles. Where is 
one word or hint of Barnabas being 
with Paul on this occasion ? — or Ti- 
tus, of whose companionship with 
Paul on the third journey we have 
distinct mention, but who never ap- 
pears upon the second ? Mr. Lew- 
in's suggestion, that Paul might 
have taken up Barnabas on the voy- 
age, at Cyprus, or that Barnabas may 
have joined him by appointment at 
Cresarea, needs no refutation, as it 
has no basis in known facts. But 
we venture to affirm that it was im- 
possible for Barnabas and Titus to 
have been at Jerusalem with Paul 
at the close of the second missionary 
journey, and under the circumstances 
described in Galatians ii. For how 
could there be any question of " com- 



Chap. XVI. 



Xotes and Illustrations. 



497 



pelling Titus, being a Greek, to be 
circumcised," years after the Apostles 
and elders and brethren at Jerusalem 
had decreed that the Gentiles need 
not be subjected to the rite? And 
as to Barnabas (to suspend for a mo- 
ment the fatal objection from the 
want of any positive evidence of his 
presence), at the time when, being at 
Jerusalem with Paul, he conferred 
with the other Apostles concerning 
their work, the result of that confer- 
ence was that Paul and Barnabas 
should go to the heathen. Accord- 
ingly, after the former visit we find 
Paul proposing to make such a joint 
visit to the churches — a plan which 
was only altered by the unhappy 
difference about John Mark. Sure- 
ly, had the agreement referred to in 
Galatians ii. been made at a time 
subsequent to this quarrel, Paul and 
Barnabns would have hastened to act 
upon it with the added motive of per- 
fecting their reconciliation in a new 
series of joint labors ; and Barna- 
bas would have been Paul's com- 
panion in his third missionary jour- 
ney. 

For these reasons we adhere to the 
view that the visit recorded in Gala- 
tions ii. must be identified, by inter- 
nal evidence, with that of Acts xv. ; 
and we have seen how the interval 
of fourteen years may be reconciled 
with the supposition that this visit 
took place in a.d. 50. 



(B.) THESSALONICA. 

The original name of this city was 
Therma ; and that part of the Mace- 
donian shore on which it was situa- 
ted retained through the Roman pe- 
riod the designation of the Thermaic 
Gulf. The history of the city under 
its earlier name was of no great note. 
It rose into importance with the de- 
cay of Greek nationality, Cassander 



the son of Antipater rebuilt and en- 
larged it, and named it after his wife 
Thessalonica, the sister of Alexander 
the Great. The name ever since, 
under various slight modifications, 
has been continuous, and the city it- 
self has never ceased to be eminent. 
Saloniki is still the most important 
town of European Turkey, next after 
Constantinople. Under the Romans, 
when Macedonia was divided into 
four governments, Thessalonica was 
made the capital of the second ; after- 
ward, when the whole was console 
dated into one province, this city 
became practically the metropolis. 
Strabo in the first century speaks of 
Thessalonica as the most populous 
city in Macedonia. It Avas the chief 
station on the great Roman Road, call- 
ed the Via Er/natla, which connected 
Rome with the whole region to the 
north of the iEgean Sea. Placed as 
it was on this great Road, and in 
connection with other important Ro- 
man ways, Thessalonica was an in- 
valuable centre for the spread of the 
Gospel. In fact it was nearly, if not 
quite, on a level with Corinth and 
Ephesus in its share of the commerce 
of the Levant. The circumstance 
noted in Acts xvii. 1, that here was 
the synagogue of the Jews in this 
part of Macedonia, had evidently 
much to do with the Apostle's plans, 
and also doubtless with his success. 
Trade would inevitably bring Jews 
to Thessalonica : and it is remarka- 
ble that, ever since, they have had 
a prominent place in the annals of 
the city. There is an arch of the 
early Imperial times, called the Var- 
ddr gate, which spans the main street 
of the city, at its western extremity. 
At its eastern extremity is another 
Roman arch of later date, and proba- 
bly commemorating some victory of 
Constantine. The main street, which 
both these arches cross, and which 
intersects the city from east to west. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XVI. 



is undoubtedly the line of the Via 1 mental in the conversion of the Sla- 
Egnatia. \ vonians and Bulgarians. Thus it 

During several centuries this city ! received the designation of "the Or- 
was the bulwark, not simply of the ! thodox City;" and its struggles are 
later Greek Empire, but of Oriental I very prominent in the writings of the 
Christendom, and was largely instru- 1 Byzantine historians. 




Ruins of the Theatre at Ephesus. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

st. paul's third missionary journey ; his arrest at Jeru- 
salem, AND IMPRISONMENT AT CzESAREA. A.D. 54 TO A.D. 

60. 

§ 1. Extent and duration of Paul's Third Circuit — His constant conflict with 
the Judaizers. § 2. Paul in Galatia — The Judaizing teachers — The 
Epistle to the Galatians written from Ephesus. § 3. The Church of 
Ephesus — Apollos and the Twelve Disciples, who knew only the bap- 
tism of John — Apollos at Corinth — Paul's arrival at Ephesus. § 4. 
He preaches in the Synagogue, and is rejected by the Jews — Preaches 
in the School of Tyrannus — Spread of the Gospel through proconsular 
Asia — The special miracles of St. Paul, and his conflict with the magic- 
al arts. § 5. Defeat of the Jewish exorcists — Burning of the Books. 
§ 6. Paul prepares to leave Ephesus — Mission of Timothy and Erastus 
to Macedonia and Achaia — Change in the Apostle's plan owing to 
news from Corinth — State of the Corinthian Church. § 7. Paul's First 
Epistle to the Corinthians — Internal evidence of its Date and Place. 
§ 8. Question of a former Epistle and of an intermediate visit to Cor- 
inth. § 9. Contents and spirit of the Epistle. § 10. Sequel of St. 
Paul's stay at Ephesus — The Riot raised by Demetrius. § 11. Paul 
sets out for Macedonia — His labors at Alexandria Troas — Disappoint- 
ment in not finding Titus there — He proceeds to Philippi and meets 
Titus. § 12. Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians — Its relation to 
the missions of Timothy and Titus — Question of an intermediate Epis- 
tle. § 13. Character and Contents of the Epistle — Questions about 
the particular offender and the opposition to St. Paul's authority — 



500 St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 

The peculiar spirit of the Epistle. § 14. The Apostle's labors in Mac- 
edonia and Illyricum — His arrival at Corinth — The Epistle to the Ro- 
mans — Paul's views toward the West, now that his work in the East 
was done. § 15. Relation of the Epistle to the constitution of the Ro- 
man Church — Its mixed Jewish and Gentile character — The strong 
Greek element — Paul's personal relations to the Church — Spirit and 
Contents of the Epistle. § 16. Paul's journey from Corinth through 
Macedonia — Voyage from Philippi after the Passover — A week at 
Troas, and a farewell Sunday — Death and restoration of Eutychus. 
§ 17. Voyage to Miletus — Discourse to the Ephesian Elders. § 18. 
From Miletus to Patara, and thence to Phoenicia — A week at Tyre, 
and another Sunday farewell. § 19. Erom Tyre to Csesarea — Philip 
the Deacon and his daughters — Prophecy of Agabus — Journey to Je- 
rusalem. § 20. Paul's reception by the Churches — Dangers from the 
Judaizers — Their calumnies — Paul joins four Nazarites in their vow — 
Is assaulted in the Temple, and rescued by the tribune Lysias — His 
defenses to the people and before the Sanhedrim — Plot against his 
life — He is sent to Cassarea. § 21. His defense before Eelix, and two 
years' imprisonment at Csesarea — Felix superseded by Festus. 

§ I. It was — according to the different views explained in 
the preceding chapter — either in the beginning, or toward the 
autumn, of a.d. 54,. that Paul, after another considerable stay 
at Antioch, 1 started again upon his old track, and " went over 
all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, confirming 
the disciples," and also giving directions for the collection on 
behalf of the poor saints at Jerusalem. 2 This Third Circuit 
included a residence of no less than three years at Ephesus ; 
a journey through Macedonia, and probably as far as Illyricum, 
which brought the Apostle to Corinth, where he spent the 
three winter months of a.d. 57-58. To disconcert a Jewish 
plot against his life, he returned through Macedonia and em- 
barked at Philippi after the close of the Passover, and re- 
joined the companions who sailed direct from Corinth at 
Alexandria Troas. Thence he pursued his voyage, the course 
of which we are able to trace day by day, along the coast of 
Ionia, Caria, and Lycia, and across the Pamphylian and Cili- 
cianseas, to Tyre, Ptolemais (Acre), and Caes are a, whence he 
went up by land to Jerusalem, to the Feast of Pentecost, and 
was there arrested in the Temple. The duration of the whole 
circuit was (according to the two dates of its commencement) 
either a little more, or a little less, than four years. The 
companions with whom the Apostle started on this journey 
are not mentioned. It seems probable that Silas remained at 
Jerusalem, whence he had originally been sent as one of the 
bearers of the apostolic edict; and we next find him as the 
associate of St. Peter, and the bearer of his Epistle to the 

1 Acts xviii. 23 : 'in 7rpo(y/xeivag iifikpag iKctvag. 2 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. 



A.D. 5i. Conflict with the Judaizers. 501 

churches of Asia Minor. 3 The Acts and Epistles contain 
abundant proofs that Timothy was with Paul during part of 
the circuit. Titus, though not mentioned in the Acts, appears 
in the 2d Epistle to the Corinthians as the Apostle's minis- 
ter ; and, to pass over less known names, Luke, who appears 
to have joined him at Philippi, furnishes the testimony of an 
eye-witness to the rest of the Apostle's career, down to both 
his imprisonments at Rome. 

The whole proceedings and writings of the Apostle during 
this journey have the closest relation to that most important 
question with which his recent visit to Jerusalem was proba- 
bly connected: — What was to be the relation of the new 
kingdom of Christ to the law and covenant of the Jews ? 
Such a church as that of Corinth, with its affiliated communi- 
ties, composed chiefly of Gentile members, appeared likelyto 
overshadow by its importance the mother Church in Jiukea. 
The jealousy of the more Judaical believers, not extinguished 
by the decision of the coimcil at Jerusalem, began now to 
show itself everywhere in the form of an active and intriguing 
party-spirit. This disastrous movement could not indeed 
alienate the heart of St. Paul from the Law or the calling or 
the people of his fathers — his antagonism is never directed 
against these ; but it drew him into the great conflict of the 
next period of his life, and must have been a sore trial to the 
intense loyalty of his nature. To vindicate the freedom, as 
regarded the Jewish law, of believers in Christ, but to do 
this for the very sake of maintaining the unity of the Church, 
was to be the earnest labor of the Apostle for some years. 
In thus laboring he was carrying out completely the princi- 
ples laid down by the elder Apostles at Jerusalem ; and may 
we not believe that, in deep sorrow at appearing, even, to 
disparage the Law and the covenant, he was the more anxious 
to prove his fellowship in spirit with the Church in Judaea, by 
" remembering the poor," as " James, Cephas and John " had 
desired that he would ? 4 The prominence given, during the 
journeys upon which we are now entering, to the collection to 
be made among his churches for the benefit of the poor at 
Jerusalem, seems to indicate such an anxiety. The great 
Epistles which belong to this period, those to the Galatians, 
Corinthians and Romans, show how the " Judaizing " ques- 
tion exercised at this time the Apostle's mind. 



3 1 Petpr v. 12. It is, however, doubted whether the " Silvanus, a faith- 
ful brother," of this passage, is the same person as the Silas or Silvanus of 
the Acts and Pauline Epistles. (See chap. xix. § 17.) 4 Gal. ii. 10. 



502 



St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII, 



§ 2. His sharp conflict with the Judaizers began in the 
churches of Galatia, which now showed a lamentable change 
from the spirit with which they had received the Apostle on 
his first visit. 5 Their fickle minds had evidently been capti- 
vated by the description given by the Judaizers of the priv- 
ileges of the sons of Abraham, till they even " desired to be 
under the law." When Paul found it needful to speak plain- 
ly of the bondage into which they were thus bringing them- 
selves, their former impulsive love was turned to resentment, 
and he " became their enemy because he told them the 
truth." G His stay among them was probably brief, as he had 
to redeem his promise to the Ephesians ; and, when the re- 
straint of his presence was removed, the Judaizing teachers 
no longer dissembled their personal hostility to the Apostle. 
Like the same class of enemies at Corinth, they assailed his 
apostolic authority, and represented him as having derived 
his commission from the older Apostles, whose views (those 
of Peter and James for example) they probably insinuated 
that he opposed. Such was the occasion of his writing, most 
probably from Ephesus (a.d. 55), 7 that short but pregnant 
Epistle to the Galatians, which contains the plainest possible 
statement of the leading doctrines of the Gospel, with a refu- 
tation of the Judaizing heresy, equally conspicuous for inge- 
nuity and force of argument, for indignation against the false 
teachers, and compassionate love for the deluded disciples 
who were wronging themselves and him. He recalls to 
their minds the Gospel which he had preached among them, 
and asserts in solemn and even awful language its absolute 
truth. 8 He declares that he had received it directly from 
Jesus Christ the Lord, and that his position toward the other 
Apostles had always been that, not of a pupil, but of an inde- 
pendent fellow-laborer. He sets before them Jesus the Cruci- 
fied, the Son of God, as the fulfillment of the promise made to 
the fathers, and as the pledge and giver of freedom to men. 
He declares that in him, and by the power of the Spirit of 
sonship sent down through him, men have inherited the rights 
of adult sons of God ; that the condition represented by the 
Law was the inferior and preparatory stage of boyhood. He 
then most earnestly and tenderly impresses upon the Galatians 
the responsibilities of their fellowship with Christ the Cruci- 
fied, urging them to fruitfulness in all the graces of their 



5 Gal. i.G, iv. 11-20. 
G Gal. iv. 16. wore sxOpbg v/jiCjv 
ytyova aXriOeviov vjxiv. 

T The date of the Epistle has been 



the subject of much controversy. 
Some refer it to the Apostle's stay at 
Corinth. 

8 Gal. i. 8 } 9. 



A.D. 54. Apollos and Paul at Ephesus. 503 

spiritual calling, and especially to brotherly consideration and 
unity. 

The date of the Epistle to the Galatians can be fixed with 
tolerable certainty by internal evidence. That it Avas written 
after Paul's second visit, is proved by his allusion to the 
first ; 9 but that the interval was not long, may be inferred 
from his mention of the speed with which their declension had 
followed on his departure : 10 and these indications are con- 
firmed by an allusion to the collection which the Apostle had 
been making for the poor saints of Judasa among the Galatian 
churches. 11 Mr. Lewin even finds an allusion to the very 
year, in the remonstrance against the observance of days, and 
weeks, and months and years; 12 as the Sabbatic year began on 
the 1st of Nlsan in a.d. 55. At all events it seems most 
probable that the Epistle was written during Paul's residence 
at Ephesus. 

§ 3. Ephesus may be regarded as the central object of this 
third journey of the Apostle through Asia Minor. The city 
well deserved the importance which the Apostle evidently at- 
tached to the redemption of the promise he had made during 
his former hasty visit. What Antioch was for the region of 
Syria and Cilicia, what Corinth was for Greece, what Rome 
was — we may add — for Italy and the West, that Ephesus 
was for the important province called Asia. Indeed, with ref- 
erence to the spread of the Church Catholic, Ephesus occupied 
the central position of all. This was the meeting-place of 
Jew, of Greek, of Roman and of Oriental. Accordingly, the 
Apostle of the Gentiles was to stay a long time here, that he 
might found a strong Church, which should be a kind of 
mother-church to Christian communities in the neighboring 
cities of Asia. 

In the interval between the visits of Paul, a new religious 
movement had been going on at Ephesus, under the impulse 
of one whose name, after being made at first the watchword 
of a rival party, has been handed down by the Apostle himself 
in close connection with his own. " A certain Jew named 
Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in 
the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in 
the way of the Lord ; and, being fervent in the spirit, he spake 
and taught diligently the things of the .Zorc?, knowing only the 

9 Gal. iv. 13. rb TTpurtfjop. in Galatia those systematic collec- 

10 Gal. i. 6; iv. 18; v. 7. I tions on the first day of the week, 

11 Gal. ii. 9 : compare 1 Cor. xvi. j which he enjoins npon the Corinthi- 
1. We learn from this passage | ans. 

that Paul had already instituted 12 Gal. iv. 10. 



504 



St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 



baptism of John" 13 His bold utterances in the synagogue 
attracted the notice of Aquila and Priscilla, who " received 
him " — probably into the Christian society meeting in their 
house — " and expounded unto him the way of God more per- 
fectly." This instruction was doubtless in the way of confer- 
ence, for we do not read of Aquila and Priscilla acting as pub- 
lic teachers. After spending some time at Ephesus, Apollos, 
being desirous of passing into Achaia, carried with him letters 
from the brethren at Ephesus to the Corinthian Church. On 
his arrival at Corinth, " he helped them much which had be- 
lieved through grace ; for he mightily convinced the Jews, 
and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was 
Christ." " His eloquence, acquired probably from the teach- 
ing of the Alexandrian schools, seems to have presented to 
some of the Corinthian converts those captivating qualities 
which they missed in the " plain speech " of Paul ; and Apol- 
los Avas raised, by no choice of his own, into the position of a 
party leader, Avith results which we have presently to notice. 
Meamvhile, the influence of the work which he had begun 
at Ephesus, before his association with Aquila and Priscilla, 
survived his departure. Apollos had already reached Corinth, 
Avhen " Paul, having passed through the upper coasts, came to 
Ephesus." 15 Here he found twelve men, Avho, like Apollos, are 
called disciples ; but who, on being asked by the Apostle 
Avhether they had received the Holy Ghost Avhen they believed, 
confessed their ignorance that there was any Holy Ghost. 
" Unto what then were ye baptized ?" asked Paul ; and they 
said, " Unto John's baptism." Then, in the language of the 
Baptist himself, Paul explained to them that John's baptism 
of repentance Avas but introductory to faith in Him Avho should 
come after him, Christ Jesus. Upon this the men Avere bap- 
tized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the imposition of 
Paul's hands they received the Holy Ghost, and spake Avith 
tongues, and prophesied." 16 

In this narrative, it must be carefully observed that " the 
baptism of John," which alone Apollos kneAV, and Avhich he 
began by teaching at Ephesus, was a form of Christian belief, 
quite distinct from a certain anti-Christian heresy which 



13 Actsxviii. 24, 25. 'AiroXkwg is 
an abbreviated form of 'AttoWojvioq ; 
and the Codex Bezaz has the latter 
form, or (for the reading is indistinct) 
perhaps 'ATroWodcopog. 

14 Acts xviii. 25-28. 

15 Acts xix. 1. The aviorepucdi fiept] 



seem to be the highlands about the 
sources of the Hermus and Mseander, 
the border-land between Phrygia and 
proconsular Asia, at which the Apos- 
tle was forbidden to enter Asia on his 
Second Circuit. 
10 Acts' xix. 1-7- 



A.D. 54. Ministry and Miracles at Ephesus. 505 

sprang up at an early period in the history of the Church, 
maintaining that John the Baptist was the Messiah. The 
question of the precise relation of the form of belief held by 
Apollos and the others to the full profession of Christianity 
has been much disputed ; but little more light can be thrown 
upon it than that derived from Paul's mode of dealing with 
the twelve disciples. We are led to suppose that a knowledge 
of the baptism of John and of the ministry of Jesus had 
spread widely, and had been received with favor by some of 
those who knew the Scriptures most thoroughly, before the 
message concerning the exaltation of Jesus and the descent of 
the Holy Ghost had been received. An account of the great 
events that had occurred in Palestine seems to have been 
spread abroad by Jews who, having visited the country before 
the effusion of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, had 
received only the baptism of John, and had a very imperfect 
idea of the relation of his mission to that of Christ. The be- 
lief of Apollos and the twelve brethren concerning the charac- 
ter and work of Jesus seems to have been wanting in recog- 
nition of the full lordship of Jesus and of the gift of the Holy 
Ghost. 

§ 4. After this incident, Paul entered on his public ministry 
at Ephesus according to his usual plan, and with the usual re- 
sult. For three months he spoke boldly in the synagogue, 
" disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom 
of God." Of that same congregation who had been so eager 
for his return, some indeed received his testimony, but others 
were only hardened and disobedient, till they went on to speak 
evil " of that way " before the people. Thereupon Paul, as at 
Corinth, withdrew entirely from the synagogue, taking with 
him the disciples as a separate congregation, which met in the 
school of a certain Tyrannus (doubtless a professional lecturer 
on rhetoric and philosophy), where he discoursed daily for two 
full years. That long period gave an opportunity for all the 
people of Asia to hear the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews 
and Greeks. The phrase used by St. Luke seems to imply the 
diffusion of the Gospel through the province by the Apostle's 
personal ministry in tours undertaken from Ephesus as his 
head-quarters. For it must be observed, that the narrative 
furnishes no account of Paul's occupations during the two 
years of his Ephesian ministry ; save those touching allusions 
of his own at a later time, to his serving the Lord with all hu- 
mility of mind, amid sorrows and trials from the plots of the 
Jews, — to his teaching from house to house, as well as public- 
ly, — to his not ceasing to warn every man night and day with 
W 



506 JSt: Paul's Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 

tears. 17 Instead of such details, the writer of the Acts seems 
to have been intent on exhibiting Ephesus — the capital of the 
civilization, idolatry and corruption of the richest province 
of the Roman empire — : as the scene of a signal conflict be- 
tween the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of light. 

For Paul's teaching was confirmed by " special miracles " — 
miracles of no ordinary nature, so that from his body were 
brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the dis- 
eases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of 
them." 18 This most striking mode of conveying healing pow- 
er by the mere contact of an object seemed peculiarly to chal- 
lenge comparison with the many forms of magic and incanta- 
tion that were rife at Ephesus. " It is evident that the arts of 
sorcery and magic — all those arts which betoken belief in the 
presence of a spirit, but not of a Holy Spirit — were flourishing 
here in great luxuriance." 19 It was to be clearly shown that 
Paul's miracles were wrought by no such arts, but by the heal- 
ing power of the Lord Jesus himself. 

.§ 5. The Jews were the first to challenge a decisive contest, 
in the spirit of their countrymen, who had confessed the 
source of their own exorcisms when they accused our Saviour 
of casting out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. 
Every province was infested with itinerant Jewish magicians, 
like Simon Magus and Elymas. Seeing probably, like Simon, 
a new form of charm in the name of Jesus, certain of these 
" vagabond Jews, exorcists," attempted to use it upon those 
possessed with evil spirits, saying, " We adjure you by Jesus, 
whom Paul preacheth." In one case, the experiment led to a 
result as decisive as it was unexpected. The seven sons of a 
Jewish chief priest, named Sceva, engaged in such an exor- 
cism ; and we can fancy the parade of gestures and mutterings 
with which they " mopped and mowed " around the patient ; 
when suddenly the evil spirit found a voice to repeat the con- 
fessions which the powers of darkness had so often made of 
Jesus and of Paul himself, and cried out, " Jesus I know (ac- 
knowledge), and Paul I know ; but who are ye ?" As the cry 
was uttered, the possessed man attacked his exorcists and 
overpowered them, so that they fled out of the house naked 



n Acts xx. 19,20,31. 

18 Acts xix. 8-13. dwctfiiiQ ov rag 
tvxoixtciq. The fact that Paul per- 
formed miracles of the same extraor- 
dinary character as those of Peter at 
Jerusalem (Acts v. 15) has a mani- 
fest bearing upon bis equality with 



the rest of the Apostlos ; and a similar 
likeness has been observed in Paul's 
conferring the Holy Ghost upon the 
twelve disciples to the work of Peter 
and John at Samaria. 

19 Maurice, Unity of the New TeSta* 
ment, p. 515. 



A.D. 56. 



Intended Journey to Greece. 



507 



and wounded, exposing their shameful failure to the public 
gaze. 20 

The affair became known to all the Greeks and Jews who 
dwelt at Ephesus ; and this signal proof of the Apostle's com- 
mand, in the name of Jesus, over the world of spirits, caused 
fear to fall upon all men, and the name of the Lord Jesus was 
magnified. A new practical effect was produced even among 
those who had already believed ; and many who seem to have 
been slow to abandon magic arts, now confessed and showed 
their deeds. 21 To confession they added sacrifice, bringing 
forth piles of those books containing the formulae of magic, 
which derived their very name from the city, 22 and formed 
most valuable articles of merchandise, to be publicly burned. 
The total value of the books thus destroyed was computed at 
50,000 denarii, or about 11101. The evangelist, who records 
this great blow to magic as a decisive triumph of Christian 
truth, 23 might well have been astounded, if he had seen such 
arts revived in Christian countries, and tampered with, if not 
believed in, by Christian men. ' 

§ 6. It was shortly after this affair that Paul, having now 
spent two years and a quarter at Ephesus, began to make ar- 
rangements for his further journey into Greece. St. Luke tells 
that " Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through 
Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have 
been there, I must also see Rome. So he sent into Macedonia 
two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Eras- 
tus ; but he himself stayed in Asia for a season." 24 The natu- 
ral inference would be that Paul intended to pursue his for- 
mer route through Macedonia to Corinth, and that the mission 
of Timothy and Erastus was to prepare the Macedonian and 
Achaian Churches for his visit, 25 and especially to get ready 
the contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem, according to 
the plan which the Apostle had appointed for the churches of 
Galatia : — " Upon the first day of the week, let every one of 



30 Acts xix. 13-16. The words 
KaraKvpavaaq avTu>v'iax vcre KaT ' a vr&v 
evidently imply a severe struggle. 

21 rag irpd^uQ avrwv, that is, those 
evil practices, the nature of which ap- 
pears from the context, not their 
every-day life. 

22 'E0£O"ta ypd/jifiara. These are 
said to have been for the most part 
sentences copied from the inscriptions 
on various parts of the idol, and sold 
at an immense pries as charms. 



23 Acts xix. 20. " So mightily 
grew the word of the Lord, and pre- 
vailed." 

24 Acts xix. 21, 22. It is important 
to observe how definitely the visit to 
Rome formed- a part of the Apostle's 
plan, as we also learn from the Epis- 
tle to the Romans. 

25 1 Cor. iv. 17. The intention that 
Timothy should go on from Mace- 
donia to Corinth is also referred to in 
1 Cor. xvi. 10. 



508 



St. -Paul's Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XV 'II 



you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there 
be no gatherings when I come." 26 But to the Church of Cor- 
inth the mission of Timothy had a further object : — " to bring 
you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ." We 
shall soon see how needful it was thus to recall to the remem- 
brance of the Corinthians those apostolic lessons and examples^ 
the impression of which had been well-nigh effaced by party 
spirit and moral corruption. 

It is plain that the order of this journey is quite of second 
ary importance, and that St. Luke's " Macedonia and Achaia" 
may quite as well mean " Achaia and Macedonia," if this or- 
der be required by other evidence. Such evidence we seem 
to have in the words of St. Paul himself ; for, in the Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians, written, as we shall presently see, 
from Macedonia in the course of this journey, he describes 
his plan as follows. After expressing his earnest hope, con- 
firmed anew from what had occurred meanwhile, that they 
would continue to acknowledge to the very end the truths 
that he had preached and written to them, he adds : — " And, 
in this confidence, I was minded to come unto you before, 
that ye might have a second benefit, and to pass by you into 
Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and 
of you to be brought on my way toward Judaea." 27 Here we 
have the plan of a journey with the same general object as 
that described in the Acts, embracing both Achaia and Mace- 
donia, only in the opposite order, and ending by a return to 
Jerusalem, in order, as we afterward learn, to carry thither 
the contributions of the Gentile churches. There can be no 
doubt, therefore, that the two passages refer to the same 
journey, and the variation in the order presents no real dim 
culty. 28 But, though unimportant as a matter of criticism, 
this variation is of deep interest in connection with the Apos- 
tle's career, and with his relations to the church of Corinth. 
The strong asseverations which follow the passage just quoted, 
that there was no fickleness, no Tea, yea ! and JVay, nay ! in 
these his plans, any more than in his doctrine — in language 
that might seem extravagant in relation to the question of 
making a journey at one time rather than another — lead up to 
the very cogent motives that caused the Apostle to change 



26 l Cor. xvi. 1, 2. 

27 2 Cor. i. 15, 16. 

28 It is perfectly in keeping with the 
practice of the best historians, that St. 
Luke, writing after the event, should 
have described the Apostle's plan in 



its ultimate form, without encumber- 
ing his narrative with an account of 
the intermediate intentions, or feeling 
it necessary to explain that Timothy 
and Erastus were sent forward beforo 
the change of plau. 



a.d. 57. Change in the Apostle's Plan. 509 

his plan : — " Moreover, I call God as a witness to my soul, 
that to spare yon I came not as yet unto Corinth: .... But 
I determined this with myself, that I would not come again 
to you in sorrow :" — and then he says how, amid the former 
sorrow thus referred to, he had written his First Epistle, " not 
to grieve them, but that they might know the abundance of 
his love for them." 29 

That First Epistle explains the source of all this sorrow, 
and the influence it had on the Apostle's change of plan. 
Certain brethren, who came to Ejmesus from Corinth, and 
whom, with true Christian honor, he mentions by name, had 
brought him afflicting news concerning the Corinthian church : 
" It hath been declared unto you my brethren, by those of the 
house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you." 3& 
Nor was this the worst. The church had been disgraced by 
scandalous immorality, without any censure upon the offend- 
er, and, among other grave disorders in w r orship, the Lord's 
Supper had been profaned into a riotous feast. Now comes 
out the character of Paul. A man of his fearless plain-speak- 
ing zeal might perhaps have been expected to hasten to Cor- 
inth, and combat with the evil in person. But he takes 
counsel of a kindlier wisdom. To spare them, he delays his 
visit to Corinth, and determines to make his journey by way 
of Macedonia first ; then' to stay awhile at Corinth, and 
probably to winter there, and to be brought on by them on 
his further journey. Meanwhile he resolved to stay at 
Ephesus till Pentecost, to improve his growing success — " a 
great and effectual door is opened unto me " — and to combat 
the " many adversaries," of whom we shall soon hear more. 
In case Timothy, who had already been sent into Macedonia, 
apparently with directions to wait for Paul at Corinth, should 
arrive there, he is commended to their regard, in terms which 
imply a fear of insult from the Anti-Pauline party, and they 
are bidden to send him forth in peace, that he might return to 
Paul. 31 



29 2 Cor. i. 12-ii. 10. 

50 1 Cor. i. 11, IP. 

31 1 Cor. xvi. 1-11. There is a 
distinct intimation of Paul's change 
of route in the words MaKs8oviav yap 
Sitpxo/Acu (ver. 5). Comparing vv. 3 
and G, it seems doubtful whether the 
Apostle now adhered to his purpose 
of returning to Jerusalem, or whether 
he intended to send the collection by 
messengers from Corinth, while he 



plated journey to Rome. We shall 
see presently how it happened that 
he returned after all through Mace- 
donia. The absence of Timothy from 
Ephesus when the Epistle was written 
is indicated also by the omission of 
his name from the superscription. It 
appears from 1 Coi\ iv. 1 7 (especially 
the words ""for this cause ").that, even 
at the time of Timothy's departure, 
the Apostle had heard enough of 



himself went forward on his contem- what was going on at Corinth to mak 



uz 



510 



St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 



§ 7. While thus arranging his plans so as to give his disci* 
pies at Corinth a space for repentance before his arrival, he 
stimulated them to that repentance, and gave directions for 
that reformation of their disorders which would prepare for 
his coming to them in joy and peace, by writing the letter 
from which the above particulars have been gathered, the 
First Epistle to the Corinthians. Its contents give decisive 
indications of its date and place : it was written after Paul's 
second visit to Galatia ; 32 after the mission of Timothy, and 
Erastus ; 33 and after the change in the Apostle's plans. St. 
Paul alludes to his being still in Asia, and at Ephesus, whence 
he was contemplating his departure at the ensuing Pente- 
cost ; 34 circumstances which fix the date to the spring of his 
last year's residence at Ephesus (a.d. 57). The suggestion, 
that the date may be more exactly fixed to the season of the 
Passover by the allusion to that feast, is both ingenious and 
reasonable. 35 The Epistle was no doubt sent, as the sub- 
scription states, 36 by the hands of Stephanas, Fortunatus and 
Achaicus, who had lately come from Corinth, as we shall 
presently see, and who are especially commended to the hon- 
orable regard of the Church. 37 The supposition that they 
were accompanied by Titus seems to be negatived by the ab- 
sence of any mention in the First Epistle of that mission of 
his on which so much stress is laid in the second, 38 and which 
evidently took place shortly after the dispatch of the First 



him feel the necessity of reminding 
them of " his ways in Christ ;" unless 
we may suppose that this was a 
further injunction written to Timothy 
in Macedonia. On the other hand, 
Mi\ Lewin conjectures that, when 
Paul changed his plan, he sent to re- 
call Timothy,whose arrival at Corinth 
seems to be referred to doubtfully in 
chap. xvi. 10; but we must not lay 
too much stress on the contingent 
sense of lav de. 

82 1 Cor. xvi. 1. 

33 1 Cor. iv. 17, xvi. 10. 

34 1 Cor. xvi. 8, 19. Ephesus is 
named as the place whence the Epis- 
tle was written both in Vatican MS. 
and the Coptic Version. 

35 1 Cor. v. 6-8. The Passover fell 
this year on April 1st. The infer- 
ence that the Epistle was written aft- 
er the tumult excited by Demetrius — 
from the idea that it is alluded to 



figuratively in the passage, "If, after 
the manner of man (kcito. avdpunrov, 
secundum hoviinein, ' as a man may 
do'), I fought with beasts at Ephe- 
sus " (1 Cor. xv. 32) — is at least doubt- 
ful. The contrary inference may be 
drawn from the absence of any clearer 
allusion, compared with the distinct 
mention in the 2d Epistle of "our 
troubles which came to us in Asia, 
. . . insomuch that we despaired even 
of life " (2 Cor. i. 8), and coupled with 
the fact that St. Paul left Ephesus di- 
rectly after the tumult (Acts xx. 1). 

36 It must be remembered that these 
subscriptions to the Epistles are no 
part of the original documents, and 
only express opinions of various de- 
grees of probability. Some of them, 
however, have the authority of high 
antiquity. 

37 1 Cor. xvi. 17, 18. 

38 2 Cor. xii. 18. 



A.D. 57. First Epistle to the Corinthians. 513 

Epistle, .and while Paul was still at Ephesus ; as he expected 
— though his anxiety caused him to expect it too soon — to 
meet Titus at Troas on his return from Corinth. 39 The allu- 
sion to the presence of Apollos is not only inrportant as anoth- 
er mark of time, but as an indication of his complete concord 
with Paul in the reproofs addressed to the Corinthians for 
making parties in the name of the Apostle and himself. It 
would seem that Paul wished him to go to Corinth with the, 
bearers of the Epistle and enforce its admonitions, but that; 
Apollos, with wise delicacy, preferred to postpone his visit, 
lest his presence should rather inflame the dissensions : — " As 
touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come 
unto you with the brethren: but his will was not at all to 
come at this time ; but he will come when he shall have a 
convenient time." 40 

§ 8. Such were the circumstances under which St. Paul 
wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians. But besides the 
occasion furnished by the information received from those of 
the house of Chloe, we learn that the Epistle was written in 
reply to a letter of inquiry from the Corinthians themselves 
upon certain questions of great importance ; 41 which letter 
was brought to Ephesus by Stephanas and Fortunatus and 
Achaicus, the same brethren who carried back the Apostle's 
answer. 42 But further, it is now generally supposed that the 
Epistle contains allusions to a visit, not mentioned in the Acts, 
which Paul paid to Corinth, during the first half of his stay 
at Ephesus, and to a letter which he wrote to the Church soon 
after this visit, and before that which is now called the First 
Epistle. The ingenuity of these conjectures has caused them 
to be perhaps too hastily received. The hypothesis of a 
former Epistle, which is not now extant, rests on the slight 
evidence of a single allusion. 43 The arguments for the sup- 

3D 2 Cor. ii. 12, 13. la fornicator, or covetous, or an idola- 

40 I Cor. xvi. 12. Iter, etc.;" — where the repetition of 

41 1 Cor. vii. 1. ; the same word, typa\pa, is concealed 

42 1 Cor. xvi. 17, 18 : comp. ver. 12. j in the A.V. by the contrasted tenses 

43 1 Cor. v. 9 : iypaxpa vfxlv tv r?j I wrote and I have written. There 
'nrirTToky, k.t.X., ll I wrote to you in the j may certainly be a contrast between 
letter [not, as the A.V. lias it, in a j a general direction, which had been 
letter] not to keep company with for- j given in a former letter and misun- 
nicators ; yet not altogether with the i derstood, and its plainer repetition 
fornicators of this world, or with the : now in consequence of the gross sin 
covetous or extortioners or idolaters — j which had arisen. But on the other 
for then must ye needs go out of the j hand, the well-known use of the Aor- 
world : — but now I wrote to you [vwl j ist as a Present Indefinite (which it 
8k eypatpa v/luv] not to keep company, | clearly is in ver. 11) allows us to take 
if any man that is called a brother be ! the passage as an emphatic reitera- 

W2 



514 



St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 



posed visit to Corinth are derived entirely from the use in 
certain passages of the phrases, the third time, again, and so 
forth ; but, so long as they are not proved incapable (as Paley 
has shown) of another interpretation, they can not be held 
conclusive in the absence of direct historic evidence. 44 But, 
at all events, the decision of this doubtful question is of little 
consequence compared with the ample evidence, furnished by 
the Epistle itself, of the sleepless vigilance and untiring affec- 
tion with which Paul kept up communication with the Church 
at Corinth, amid all his troubles and conflicts at Ephesus, — a 



tion, rather than as a contrast (like 
the very similar reiteration in 1 John 
ii. 12-14) : "7 write to you in my let- 
ter," etc.; only do not misunderstand 
me, ' ' for now I write to you, " etc. 
The fact that the occasion of the in- 
junction lias just been alluded to as 
new matter (1 Cor. v. 1) is a strong 
argument against any former letter 
in reference to it ; and, moreover, the 
hypothesis that the Apostle, on his 
supposed visit to Corinth, had pro- 
nounced a judgment on this matter, 
which he now emphatically repeats, 
seems to be negatived by ver. 3 : " 1 
verily, as absent in body but present in 
spirit, have judged already, as though 
I were present, concerning him that 
hath so done this deed;" — referring 
to the judgment of excommunication 
which lie goes on to pronounce. 

44 2 Cor. xii. 14, rpirov rovro iroi- 
pa>g t)((o t\0uv rrpbg vpag, and xiii. 1, 
rpirov rovro epxopai rrpbg vpag. It is 
enough to say that the rpirov here re- 
fers to an intention, and not neces- 
sarily to a visit. 2 Cor. xii. 21, pr) 
7rd\iv IXQovra pe rcnreivdjrrn b Qebg : 
here certainly the natural sense is 
"lest on my coming again (i. e., for 
the second, not the third time) God 
should humble me," rather than 
"God should humble me again ;" and 
Shis may serve to explain 2 Cor. ii. 1, 
iKpiva pr) iraXiviv Xviry rrpbg vpag 
IXdtiv, where the lv Xvrnj seems to be 
inserted between the rraXiv and 0X9 tiv 
for the sake of emphasis. The whole 
spirit of the context and of the Epis- 
tle seems to be, not that he feared 
having to pay them a second sorroiv- 



ful visit, but that, after having had so 
much joy when first he preached the 
Gospel among them, he would not 
expose them and himself to pain and 
humiliation on his return.' 2 Cor. 
xiii. 2, irpoeipnica kui rrpoXeyio, wc 
TTCipibv rb Sevrepov, Kai enrutv, vvv y 
furnishes an argument for the theory, 
by taking irapwv and enrwv as paral- 
lel respectively to Trpoeipnica and rrpo- 
Xsyco. But it is admitted, that the 
latter clause may mean "as if I were 
present a second time, though now 
absent," and assuredly the most nat- 
ural reference of the rrpoiipnica is to 
the decisive judgment pronounced in 
the First Epistle on the offender. The 
A.V. makes the case plainer by join- 
ing rb Sevrepov with npoXkyu), and 
c'nrojv with the following word ypcupwt, 
which, however, is wanting in the 
best MSS. Here again, if we look at 
the spirit of the parallel passages in 
the Epistle, the allusion appears to be 
to the severity which the Apostle 
hoped to be spared using when he 
should come, rather than to that 
which he had used on a former visit 
(2 Cor. x. 1, 2, 10, 11; xiii. 10). On 
the other hand, the Apostle's allusions 
to personal opposition and contempt 
of his bodily presence certainly seem 
better explained by some humilia- 
tion received in a personal visit, than 
by any thing that happened during 
his first preaching at Corinth. Pa- 
ley regards 2 Cor. i. 15 as decisive 
against the supposed visit; but the 
"second benefit" may refer to the 
double visit which Paul at first con- 
templated. 



A.D. 57. Occasion of the Epistle. 515 

striking instance of "that which came upon him daily, the 
care of all the churches." 

§ 9. This varied and highly characteristic letter, addressed 
not to any party, but to the whole body of the large Judaio- 
Gentile church of Corinth, 45 was called forth first, as we have 
seen, by the information the Apostle had received from mem- 
bers of the household of Chloe that there were divisions in 
the Church; that parties had been formed which took the 
names of Paul, of Apollos, of 'Cephas, and of Christ : 46 — sec- 
ondly, by the moral and social irregularities that had begun to 
prevail, of which the most conspicuous and scandalous exam- 
ple was that a believer had taken his father's wife, without 
being publicly condemned by the Church ; 47 to which we must 
add one doctrinal error, of those who said " that there was no 
resurrection of the dead;" 48 — thirdly, by the inquiries that 
had been specially addressed to St. Paul by the Church of 
Corinth on several matters relating to Christian practice. It 
is probable that the teaching of Apollos the Alexandrian, 
which had been characteristic and highly successful, 49 had 
been the first occasion of the divisions in the Church. We 
may take it for granted that his adherents did not form them- 
selves into a party until he had left Corinth, and therefore that 
he had been some time with St. Paul at Ephesus. But after 
he had gone, the special Alexandrian features of his teaching 
were remembered by those who had delighted to hear him. 
Their Grecian intellect was captivated by his broader and 
more spiritual interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures. The 
connection which he taught them to perceive between the 
revelation made to Hebrew rulers and prophets and the wis- 
dom by which other nations, and especially their own, had 
been enlightened, dwelt in their minds. That which especial- 
ly occupied the Apollos school must have been a philosophy 
of the Scri%)tures. It was the tendency of this party which 
seemed to the Apostle particularly dangerous among the 
Greeks. He hardly seems to refer specially in his letter to 
the other parties, but we can scarcely doubt that in what he 
says about " the wisdom which the Greeks sought " 50 he is re- 
ferring not only to the general tendency of the Greek mind, 
but to that tendency as it had been caught and influenced by 
''he teaching of Apollos. It gives him an occasion of deliver^ 
ing his most characteristic testimony. He recognizes wisdom, 
but it is the wisdom of God ; and that wisdom was not only 

45 Actsxviii. 4. 8, 10.— 46 1 Cor.i. 11, 12.— 47 1 Cor. v. 1, vi. 7,xi. 17-22; 
xiv. 33-40.— 48 1 Cor. xv. 12.— 4a Acts xviii. 27, 28.— 50 1 Cor. i. 22. 



516 St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 

a 2o<pia or a Aoyog, through which God had always spoken to all 
men ; it had been perfectly manifested in Jesus the Crucified. 
Christ crucified was both the Power of God and the Wisdom 
of God. To receive him required a spiritual discernment un« 
like the wisdom of the great men of the world ; a discernment 
given by the Holy Spirit of God, and manifesting itself in 
sympathy with Christ's humiliation and love. 

The contents of this Epistle are extremely varied, and ah 
most preclude a more specific analysis than we here subjoin. 
The Apostle oj)ens with his usual salutation, and with an ex- 
pression of thankfulness for their general state of Christian 
progress. 51 He then at once passes on to the lamentable di- 
visions there were among them, and incidentally justifies his 
own conduct and mode of preaching, 52 concluding with a no- 
tice of the mission of Timothy, and of an intended authorita- 
tive visit on his own part. 53 The Apostle next deals with the 
case of incest that had taken place among them, and had pro- 
voked no censure, 54 noticing, as he passes, some previous re- 
marks he had made upon not keeping company with fornica- 
tors. 55 He then comments on their evil practice of litigation 
before heathen tribunals, 50 and again reverts to the plague- 
spot in Corinthian life, fornication and uncleanness. 57 The 
last subject naturally paves the way for his answers to their 
inquiries about marriage, 58 and about the celibacy of virgins 
and widows. 59 The Apostle next makes a transition to the 
subject of the lawfulness of eating things sacrificed to idols, 
and Christian freedom generally, 00 which leads, not unnatural- 
ly, to a digression on the manner in w T hich he waived his 
Apostolic privileges, and performed his Apostolic duties. 01 
He then reverts to and concludes the subject of the use of 
things offered to idols, 02 and passes onward to reprove his 
converts for their behavior in the assemblies of the Church, 
both in respect to women prophesying and praying with un- 
covered heads, 03 and also their great irregularities in the cele- 
bration of the Lord's Supper. 01 Then follow full and minute 
instructions on the exercise of spiritual gifts, 65 in which is in- 
cluded the noble panegyric of charity, 00 and further a defense 
of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, about which 
doubts and difficulties appear to have arisen in this unhappily 
divided Church. 07 The Epistle closes with some directions 

51 1. Cor. i. 1-9.— 52 Chaps, i. 10, iv. 16.— 53 Chap. iv. 17-21.— 54 Chap. v. 
1-8.— 55 Chap. v. 9-13.— 5U Chap. vi. 1-8.— 57 Chap. vi. 9-20.— 58 Chap. vii. 
1-24.— 50 Chap. vii. 25-40.— fi0 Chap, viii.— G1 Chap, ix.— 62 Chaps, x.-xi. 1. 
— ° 3 Chap. xi. 2-1 6.— 6i Chap. xi. 17-34.— C5 Chaps, xii.-xiv.— C6 Chap, xiii 
— "Chao. xv. 



A.D. 57. Contents of the Epistle. 517 

concerning the contributions for the saints at Jerusalem, 68 
brief notices of his own intended movements/ 9 commendation 
to them of Timothy and others, 70 greetings from the churches, 71 
and an autograph salutation and benediction. 72 

We must not omit to observe how loyally the Apostle rep- 
resents Jesus Christ, the Crucified, as the Lord of men, the 
Head of the body with many members, the Centre of Unity, 
the Bond of men to the Father. We should mark at the same 
time how invariably he connects the Power of the Spirit with 
the Name of the Lord Jesus. He meets all the evils of the 
Corinthian Church, the intellectual pride, the party spirit, the 
loose morality, the disregard of decency and order, the false 
belief about the Resurrection, by recalling their thoughts to 
the Person of Christ and to the Spirit of God as the Breath 
of a common life to the whole body. We observe also here, 
more than elsewhere, the tact, universally recognized and ad- 
mired, with which the Apostle discusses the practical prob- 
lems brought before him. The various questions relating to 
marriage, 73 the difficulty about meats offered to idols, 74 the 
behavior proper for women, 75 the use of the gifts of prophe- 
sying and speaking with tongues, 76 are made examples of a 
treatment which may be applied to all such questions. We 
see them all discussed with reference to first principles ; the 
object, in every practical conclusion, being to guard and assert 
some permanent principle. We see St. Paul no less a lover 
of order and subordination than of freedom. We see him 
claiming for himself, and prescribing to others, great variety 
of conduct in varying circumstances, but under the strict ob- 
ligation of being always true to Christ, and always seeking 
the highest good of men. Such a character, so steadfast in 
motive and aim, so versatile in action, it would be difficult in- 
deed to find elsewhere in history. 

What St. Paul here tells us of his own doings and move- 
ments refers chiefly to the nature of his preaching at Cor- 
inth ; " to the hardships and dangers of the apostolic life ; 78 to 
his cherished custom of working for his own living ; 79 to the 
direct revelations he had received ; 80 and to his present plans. 81 
He bids the Corinthians raise a collection for the Church at 
Jerusalem by laying by something on the first day of the week, 
as he had directed the churches in Galatia to do. He says 
that he shall tarry at Ephesus till Pentecost, and then set out 

08 Chap. xvi. 1-4.— C9 Chap. xvi. 5-9.— 70 Chap. xvi. 10-18.— 71 Chap. xvi. 
19-20.— 72 Chap. xvi. 21-24.— 73 Chap, vii.— 74 Chaps viii., x.— 75 Chaps, 
xii., xiv. — 76 Chap. xiv. — 77 Chaps, i., ii. — 78 Chap. iv. 9-13 - 79 Chap, ix 
— 80 Chaps, xi. 23, xv. 8.—" Chap, xvi- 



518 



St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chaf.'xvil 



on a journey toward Corinth through Macedonia, so as per- 
haps to spend the winter with them. He expresses his joy at 
the coming of Stephanas and his companions, and commends 
them to the respect of the Church. 

§ 10. Having dispatched this Epistle, he stayed on at Ephe- 
sus, where " a great door and effectual was opened to him, 
and there were many adversaries ; " and he would neither 
hastily withdraw from the work, nor leave the new disciples 
to face their enemies alone. The Pentecost, after which he 
proposed to set out, was evidently not far off when he wrote ; 
and his stay was shortened by the tumult which arose, as St. 
Luke tells us, " at the same time." 62 We may fairly interpret 
this indefinite note of time by the circumstance that the JEphe- 
sia, or great annual festival of Artemis (Diana), the patron 
deity of Ephesus, fell in the month of Artemisius (May). 83 
At that festival the rude wooden statue of the goddess, 83b fa- 




Greek Imperial Coin of Ephesus and Smyrna allied. 

bled to have fallen down from heaven, was exhibited to the 
holiday-keeping multitude in the splended Ionic temple, which 
was one of the wonders of the world ; and games were cele- 
brated, with dramatic entertainments, in honor of the goddess. 
If, in the decay of pagan faith, there wanted the fervid relig- 
ious exaltation of a Jewish festival, there were still ample 
materials in the idle and excitable Greek populace to be stir- 
red up to tumult by the interested persons who lived by their 
religion. These found a leader in Demetrius, one of the many 
silversmiths who pursued a most gainful trade in making 
those portable models of the shrine of the goddess, which were 
set up in houses and carried about on journeys, for which a 
special demand would naturally be expected among the coun- 
try people who came to the festival. The success of the Gospel 
threatened the loss of custom, and so " there arose no small stir 
about that way." The " great and effectual door " had proved so 



b2 Acts xix. 23. 

83 Boeckli, Corj). Inscr., No. 2954 ; 
Lewin, *. a. 57- 



83b The accompanying coin will give 
some notion of the image, which was 
grotesaiie and archaic in character. 



A.D. 57. Demetrius' s Riot at Ephesus. 519 

inviting that, according to the testimony of the leader of the 
" many adversaries," " not only at Ephesus, but almost 
throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned 
away much people, saying that they be no gods lohich are made 
loith hands? We have seen Claudius himself lamenting the 
growing neglect of the hereditary rites of the gods ; but the 
imperial concern for the national worship was mingled at 
.Ephesus with more homely motives, which are avowed with 
iamusing frankness — " So that not only this our craft is in 
danger to be set at nought ; but also that the temple of the 
great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence 
should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship- 
eth." The manufacturer, calling together his workmen, with 
the artificers of like occupation, 84 addressed to them the argu- 
ment — irresistible to those who held that gain was god 1 mess — . 
'* Sirs, ye Jcnov) that by this craft we have our wealth? Their 
n;ge broke out in the cry, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" 
and the tumult soon spread to all the city. Eager, it would 
#eem, to vent their wrath on Paul, but not finding him, they 
seized his traveling companions, Gaius and Aristarchus of 
Macedonia, and rushed with one accord into the theatre. 86 
Paul desired to face the danger in his own person ; but the 
remonstrances of the disciples were supported by some of the 
magistrates called Asiarchs, 86 who were his friends, and who 
sent to entreat him " that he would not adventure himself 
into the theatre." Meanwhile the mob gathered there were 
in utter confusion : 87 and the words of Luke present a graphic 
picture of a populace rushing to a meeting under a sudden 
and vague impulse : — " Some raised one cry and some anoth- 
er: . . . and the more part knew not wherefore they w x ere 
come together." The Jews, taught by the experience of Al- 
exandria, Csesarea, and other cities, to believe themselves in 



84 It is an interesting comment on 
these passages to find "Alexander 
the coppersmith " among the oppo- 
nents of St. Paul at Ephesus at a 
later period (2 Tim. iv. 14). 

85 We have already seen, in the 
case of Alexandria, that the theatre 
was the scene of the tumultuous meet- 
ings at which cruel indignities were 
inflicted on the Jews (chap. v. § 6). 

86 These 'AciapxaL were the presi- 
dents, ten in number, of the games 
then celebrating, the expenses of 
which they bore. Several names of 
men who held the office are stili to 



be read on coins and inscriptions. 
They were elected annually, subject 
to the approval of the proconsul, and 
were invested with a kind of sacerdo- 
tal character. The office was sought 
even by men of consular rank. There 
were similar presidents of the games 
in the other provinces of Asia Minor, 
the Galaturchs, Bithyniarchs, Lyci- 
archs, etc. 

87 It must not be supposed, from the 
phrase i\v yap i) eKicXrjaia crvyKexv/xiVT], 
that there was even the pretense of 
its being an ecclesia, or regular as* 
sembly. 



520 



St. Paul's Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII 



the greatest danger, put forward a certain Alexander ; 87k 
whether to plead their cause, or, as Calvin supposes, that, be- 
ing a Christian convert, he might be made a sort of scape- 
goat. By the gesture of the hand usual with speakers in the 
assemblies, Alexander asked for a hearing ; but the word no 
sooner went round that he was a Jew, than the rallying-cry 
was raised again, and for two whole hours the people shouted, 
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians." The riot would proba- 
bly have passed into a massacre like those of Alexandria ; but 
Ephesus was fortunate in her chief magistrate, whom Luke, 
with his wonted accuracy, calls the scribe or clerk. 88 This of- 
ficer, after appeasing the multitude, addressed them in a speech 
of admirable policy. He reminded them that this violent zeal 
was superfluous, since it was a fact universally known, and be- 
yond all gainsaying, that the city of the Ephesians was the 
" devotee " 89 of the great Artemis, and of the image that fell 
down from Jove. It was likewise useless for any practical 
object. The men against whom it was aimed were neither 
guilty of sacrilege, nor of blasphemy against the goddess. 90 If 



^ See note 84, p. 519. 

88 Ypa.nna.TtvQ, i. e., the Keeper of 
the Records, ver. 35. The inscrip- 
tions show that this was the actual 
title of the chief magistrate of Ephesus, 
and mention by name several of those 
who bore it. He kept the archives ; 
read public documents before the 



Senate and Ecclesia ; saw money de- 
posited in the temple ; and letters to 
the state were addressed to him. 

89 Ntw/copoc, an epithet constantly 
found on the coins of Ephesus, as well 
as of other Asiatic cities. It means 
temple-sweeper ; and was originally 
used as an expression of humility. 




Greek Imperial Copper Coin ("■ medallion") of Laodicea of Thrygia, Avith the epithet NEft- 

KOPHN; Commodus ; with name of Asiarch. 

Obv. : Bust of Emperor. Rev. : Figure in triumphal quadriga of lions. 

, 00 A striking testimony to the wise moderation of Paul in his contest with 



A.D. 57. PauVs Departure for Macedonia. 521 

Demetrius and the workmen with him had any charge to bring 
against any one, the courts were sitting at that very time, and 
the proconsuls were ready to hear them. 91 As for any other 
matters that required discussion, they could be settled in the 
next assembly duly summoned on the regular day. 92 This al- 
lusion to the degree in which the people still enjoyed their 
own internal government as a " free city," 93 was enforced by 
a significant hint of the imperial displeasure : — " For we are 
in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar, there 
being no cause whereby we may give an account of this con- 
course." With these words, he dismissed the assembly. 94 

§11. After the cessation of the tumult, in which, for the 
first time, we see the spirit, no longer of Jewish but of heath- 
en hostility, breaking out in full fury against the Gospel, 
Paul set out for Macedonia. His journey already fixed for 
Pentecost (May 28), would naturally be somewhat hastened 
by the riot ; but that he made no precipitate flight is shown 
by his calling the brethren together and embracing them, be- 
fore his departure. 95 St. Luke briefly records his passage 
through Macedonia, exhorting the disciples in many a dis- 
course ; 96 and his arrival in Greece, where he abode three 
months (Nov. to Feb. a.d. 57-8). 97 Important light is thrown 
upon the interval by the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 
which was written upon the journey. Pursuing the usual 
route along the coast, probably by sea, Paul reached Troas, 
the port of departure for Europe, bent on his evangelic work, 
and found a door opened to him of the Lord. But his own 
peace of mind was broken by the disappointment of not find- 
ing Titus, whom he had expected to meet him there with the 



idolatry. The word UpoavXovg is 
that which the A.V. strangely trans- 
lates "robbers of churches." 

91 'Ayopaioi dyovrai ical avdvirciToi 
daiv. Ephesus was one of the assize 
towns, fora or conventus, at which the 
proconsul held his court in turn. The 
word avOvirarot, which, in the case 
of the supreme governor of the prov- 
ince, can not be explained as an in- 
definite plural, affords another indica- 
tion of St. Luke's accuracy. In a.d. 
54, Junius Silvanus, the proconsul of 
Asia, was poisoned by P. Celer and 
Helius, the two imperial procurators, 
at the instance (it was said) of Nero 
or of Agrippina. The murderers 
seem to have assumed the proconsular 
government for a period which just 



corresponds to Paul's residence at 
Ephesus ; for at the end of this year, 
a.d. 57, we find Celer at Rome ac- 
cused by the Asiatics of maladminis- 
tration. (Lewin, s. a. 57.) 

92 'Ev ry tvvofiqj iKKXrjaia. 

93 Ephesus, under the Romans, was 
a libera civitas, with its popular as- 
sembly (dfj/jiog, tKKXijcria, vv. 30, 33, 
39), its senate (ytpovcia or fiovXij, 
mentioned by Strabo and Josephus), 
and its own magistrates, the ypapipia- 
revg already mentioned, being the 
chief. 

94 Acts xix. 23-41. 95 Acts xx. 1. 
96 Acts xx. 2 : TrapaKaXkaag avrovg 

\6y<i) noWy. He was probably ac- 
companied by Tychicus and Trophi- 
mus. 97 Acts xx. 3. 



522 PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII 

tidings of the reception of his First Epistle. 98 That his suc- 
cess at Troas was mingled with fresh outbreaks of heathen 
opposition, may be inferred from that solemn passage in 
which, while thanking God that the Gosj^el preached by him 
was nowhere without effect, he records, with overwhelming 
emotion, its two opposite results : — " Now thanks be to God, 
which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh 
manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. 
For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that 
are saved, and in them that perish : to the one we are the sa- 
vor of death unto death ; and to the other the savor of life 
unto life. And ioho is sufficient for these things?" °" These 
are the words of an Apostle seeing many of those whom he 
was laboring to save reject the counsel of God again them- 
selves ; but that many received it, is seen by the state in 
which he found the Church of Troas on his return. 100 

These complicated anxieties still distracted the Apostle 
when he landed, as before, at Neapolis, and crossed the mount- 
ains to Philippi: — "When we were come into Macedonia, 
our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side : 
without were fightings, within were fears." 101 This was the 
time chosen by " God that comforteth those that are cast 
down " to comfort the Apostle by the arrival of Titus, and 
still more by the news he brought from Corinth. 102 There 
can be little doubt that the meeting took place at Philippi ; 
and here also, if not before, Paul was rejoined by Timothy, 
whether he had made that place the head-quarters of his 
work, with Erastus, in Macedonia, or whether he also had 
reached it on his return from Corinth. 103 



5,8 2 Cor. ii. 12, 13. The inference 1 lowed the usual route, we may be 
that his restlessness of mind hindered | sure that, in traveling through Mace- 
Ills work at Troas does not seem borne ! donia, he would not pass by Philippi, 
out by the passage. On the contrary, ! both for many other reasons, and be- 
lie appears to fall back upon the mo- I cause the liberality of that Church, 
mentous issues of his work for conso- proved from the very beginning, 
lation under his personal disappoint- I would be of the utmost consequence 
ment ; and this view suggested that to the collection he was now making, 
almost awfully solemn description of \ Both the Epistles to the Corinthians 
the trust committed to the minister ; contain repeated allusions to arrange- 
'of Christ, which comes in between his ! ments made in Macedonia for that 
allusions to his stay at Troas and his \ collection. In 2 Cor. xi. 9, Macedonia 



arrival in Macedonia (2 Cor. ii. 14, 
vii. 4). 

09 2 Cor. ii. 14-16. 

300 Acts xx. 7-11, see § 16. 

2 Cor. vii. 5. Besides the pri- 



is clearly used as equivalent to Philip- 
pi, just as we have seen Asia used for 
Ephesus. 

102 2 Cor. vii. 6, 7. 

103 2 Cor. ii. 1. The conjunction 



ma facie probability that Paul fol- 1 of Timothy with Paul in the super- 



A.D. 57. Second Epistle to the Corintluc mtn * *" * ' 523 




§ 12. These circumstances concur with all the internal evi- 
dence, to mark both the time and place of St. Paul's Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians. It was written after the troubles 
that had befallen the Apostle in Asia ; 104 after his preaching 
and disappointment at Troas, his arrival in Macedonia, and 
the consolation received there by his meeting with Titus; 
while he was engaged in making the collection for the poor 
at Jerusalem ; 105 and in immediate anticipation of a renewed 
visit, whether it were his second or third, to Corinth. 106 One 
specific date is furnished by the mention of his rapture four- 
teen years before ; but, as this is the sole allusion to that 
event, we can only say that the fourteen years carries us back 
to one of the epochs at which we know that St. Paul was at 
Jerusalem, on the mission from Antioch with Barnabas in a.d. 
44 or 45. 107 

The Epistle was written under the impulse of deep and 
complex emotions, which we have the Apostle's own authori- 
ty for tracing to the news brought to him by Titus. But 
here a most interesting question is opened by various points 
of internal evidence, concerning the several missions of Timo- 
thy and Titus to Corinth, and their combined influence in ex- 
citing the feelings under which the Apostle Avrote. We have 
already seen that Timothy had been sent into Macedonia, with 
the express intention that he should proceed to Corinth, there 
to discharge the mission of recalling the wavering Church 
to the Apostle's "ways in Christ."" 108 On the view that 
Timothy fulfilled this part of his mission, 109 it is supposed that 
the intelligence which he brought upon his return — that a 
certain faction in the Corinthian Church had now gone the 
length of openly questioning Paul's authority — made the 
Apostle feel the necessity of at once dispatching to the con- 
tentious Church one of his immediate followers, with instruc- 
tions to support and strengthen the effect of the First Epistle, 

scription of the Epistle is, of course, a filled, Paul would hardly have passed 
decisive proof of Timothy's presence j it over in silence while mentioning 
at Philippi, whence it was written. the mission of Titus and another 

104 2 Cor. i. 8. brother (2 Cor. xii. 17, 18). But the 

105 2 Cor. ii. 12, 1 3, vii.5, viii.l, ix. 1. j reply seems satisfactory, that, as Tim- 
:0G 2 Cor. i. 15, xii. 14, xiii. 1. ! othy was associated with Paul in the 

107 2 Cor. xii.; Acts xi. 30. wming of the Epistle, any allusion 

108 Acts xix. 21 ; 1 Cor. iv. 17. to him in the third person would have 

109 Besides the conjecture, noticed been inappropriate ; while Timothy's 
above, that, on the change in the share in the Epistle would have a pe- 
Apostle's plans, Timothy was recalled culiar force if he had recently been 
from Macedonia, it is urged that, if giving the like admonitions to the 
his mission to Corinth had been ful- 1 Church in his own person. 



524 St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII 

and to bring back the most recent tidings of the spirit that 
was prevailing at Corinth : and hence the mission of Titus, 
accompanied by another brother, whom some suppose to have 
been Luke. 110 It has been further conjectured, that the Apos- 
tle, provoked by the open attack upon his authority, made 
Titus the bearer of another Letter (supplementary, so to 
speak, to the First Epistle), containing the sharpest rebukes, 
using the authority which had been denied, and threatening 
to enforce it speedily by his personal presence. This, it is 
supposed, was the letter written " out of much affliction and 
anguish of heart, with many tears," in and in a tone so severe 
that the Apostle at first repented having written it, though he 
repented no longer when he found that the sorrow it had 
caused the disciples for a time was " a godly sorrow, working 
repentance unto salvation not to be repented of." " 2 But 
there seems quite enough severity in the First Epistle to 
have moved the disciples to such feelings, and so to have 
caused the Apostle these alternations of regret and satisfaction. 
After the distinct intimation of his intention of following up 
that letter by his personal presence, 113 another letter in the 
same tone would have looked like the weakness of repeating 
threats in place of action. Sound criticism forbids the as- 
sumption of unrecorded facts and non-extant documents, till 
every other explanation fails; and we may justly suspect the 
conjectures, however ingenious, which result in there having 
been four epistles to the Corinthians instead of two. All, 
therefore, that we can affirm with certainty is, that Paul, while 
still in Asia, and probably some little time after the writing 
of the First Epistle, sent Titus on a mission to Corinth, the 
result of which, awaited with the utmost anxiety, and received 
by the Apostle in Macedonia, roused those mingled and pas- 
sionate emotions, under which — in conjunction with Timothy, 
who had rejoined him at some uncertain period, whether from 
Corinth or not — he wrote the Second Epistle to the Corinth- 



no 2 Cor. xii. 18. The graphic 
narrative of the tumult at Ephesus, so 
manifestly that of an eye-witness, ac- 
cords with the very brief notice in 
the Acts of the journey through Mac- 
edonia, in pointing to the conclusion 
that Luke left St, Paul after the tu- 
mult, probably for Corinth, whence 
he accompanied Paul on his return 
(Acts xx. 1-6, where the us of ver. 5 
distinctly places the writer among 
Paul's immediate companions). If, 



then, he accompanied Titus, the latter 
could not have left till after the tu- 
mult, and the interval before Paul's 
arrival at Troas must have been longer 
than is usually supposed. It is also 
clear that, if Timothy's return was 
the cause of the mission of Titus, he 
must have rejoined Paul in Asia, as 
Paul expected the return of Titus at 
Troas. m 2 Cor. ii. 3, 4. 

112 2 Cor. vii. 8-12. 

313 1 Cor. iv. 18-2L 



A.D. 57. 



Character of the Epistle. 



525 



ians. It was sent by the hands of Titus, who showed a spon 
taneous readiness to accept the Apostle's proposal that he 
should return to Corinth, and finish the collection, which he 
had begun on his former visit with a success that had caused 
him great joy, and had justified the boast which the Apostle 
had made of the liberality of the Corinthians. 114 Titus was 
accompanied by two brethren, not mentioned indeed by name, 
but recommended to the Church in very emphatic terms as 
among the most eminent and faithful of Paul's companions. 115 

§ 13. This Epistle reveals to us what manner of man St. 
Paul was when the fountains of his heart were stirred to their 
inmost depths. How the agitation which expresses itself in 
every sentence of this letter was excited, is one of the most 
interesting questions we have to consider. Every reader may 
perceive that, on passing from the First Epistle to the Second, 
the scene is almost entirely changed. In the First, the faults 
and difficulties of the Corinthian Church are before us. The 
Apostle writes of these, with spirit indeed and emotion, 
as he always does, but without passion or disturbance. He 
calmly asserts his own authority over the Church, and threat- 
ens to deal severely with offenders. In the Second, he writes 
as one whose personal relations with those whom he address- 
es have undergone a most painful shock. The acute pain 
given by former tidings — the comfort yielded by the account 
which Titus brought — the vexation of a sensitive mind at the 
necessity of self-assertion — contend together for utterance. 
What had occasioned this excitement ? 

The solution of this question must be sought in the con- 
tents of the Epistle itself. They are very varied ; but may 
be arranged generally under the three following heads: — 1st, 
The Apostle's account of the character of his spiritual labors, 
accompanied with notices of his affectionate feelings toward 
his converts ; 116 2d, Directions about the collections ; 117 3d, 
Defense of his own Apostolical character. 118 A close analysis 
is scarcely compatible with our limits, as in no one of the 
Apostle's epistles are the changes more rapid and frequent. 
Now he thanks God for their general state; 119 now he 



114 The importance attached to this 
part of the mission of Titus and his 
companions is seen in 2 Cor. ix. 3, 5. 

115 2 Cor. viii. 16-24. It is usually 
supposed that these two brethren were 
Luke (ver. 18) and Trophimus (ver. 
1!)). In the marginal references to 
the A.V. a confusion is made between 



this and the previous mission of Ti- 
tus (xii. 18) ; and indeed it is not 
easy, in some of the very similar ex- 
pressions, to distinguish which refer 
to each visit. 

116 Chaps, i-vii. u ~ Chaps, viiL,i% 

118 Chaps, x.-xiii. 10- 

119 Chap. i. 3, foil. 



526 /St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 

glances to his purposed visit ; 120 now he alludes to the special 
directions in the first letter ; m again he returns to his own 
plans, 122 pleads his own Apostolic dignity, 123 dwells long upon 
the spirit and nature of his own labors, 124 his own hopes, 125 and 
his own sufferings, 126 returning again to more specific declara- 
tions of his love toward his children in the faith, 127 and a yet 
further declaration of his views and feelings with regard to 
them. 128 Then again, in the matter of the alms, he stirs up 
their liberality by alluding to the conduct of the churches of 
Macedonia, 129 their spiritual progress, 130 the example of Christ, 131 
and passes on to speak more fully of the present mission of 
Titus and his associates, 132 and to reiterate his exhortations 
to liberality. 133 In the third portion he passes into language 
of severity and reproof ; he gravely warns those who presume 
to hold lightly his Apostolical authority ; 134 he puts strongly 
forward his Apostolical dignity ; 135 he illustrates his forbear- 
ance ; 136 he makes honest boast of his labors ; m he dcfeep 
the revelations vouchsafed to him ; 138 he again returns to the 
nature of his dealings with his converts, 139 and concludes with 
grave and reiterated warning, 140 brief greetings, and a doxol- 
ogy. m ^/L. 

Amid this variety of matter, there is one point which 
forms a sort of key-note to all the rest : the allusions to some 
particular offender, whose sin, connived at by the Church, had 
called forth those rebukes, which were followed by the Apos- 
tle's double anxiety, on the one hand, lest he should have writ- 
ten too severely, and on the other, that his remonstrances 
might bring back the Church to harmony with himself. This 
was the chief cause of the agitation with which he awaited 
the return of Titus, and of the emotions of joy and thankful- 
ness caused by his arrival. For the tidings brought by Titus 
were mainly favorable. The better part of the Church were 
returning to their spiritual allegiance to their founder ; and 
the old spirit of love and reverence toward St. Paul had been 
re-awakened. 142 The offender had been censured by his breth- 
ren, and had made submission ; and the Apostlej adding his 
full forgiveness, declares the punishment to have been suffi 
cient, and asks the Church to comfort the penitent. 143 The 

330 Chap, i. 15, foil.— 121 Chap, ii. 3, foil.— 122 Chap. ii. 12, foil.— 123 Chap, 
iii. 1, foil.— 124 Chap. iv. 1, foil.— 125 Chap. v. 1, foil.— 126 Chap. vi. 1, foil.— 
127 Chap,vi.ll, foil.— 128 Chap.vii.— 129 Chap.viii. 1, foil.— 13 ° Ver. 7.— m Ver. 
9._i32 y er . 18j foll.—>33 Chapi ix 1? foil. — 134 Chap- x# 1? foil.—" 5 Chap. xi. 

5, foil.— 136 Ver. 8, foil.— m Ver. 23, foil.— 138 Chap. xii. 1, foil.— 139 Ver. 12, 
foil.—" Chap. xiii> 1? ML— U1 Vers. 11-U.— 112 2 Cor. i. 13, 14, vii 0, 15.- 
143 Chap. ii. 5-U. 



A.D. 57. 



Character of the Epistle. 



527 



common inference, naturally drawn from a comparison of the 
two Epistles, is that these expressions relate to the incestuous 
person, concerning whose case the Apostle had so sharply cen^ 
sured the negligence of the Church. 144 Upon this view the 
other portions of the Epistle, in which the Ajoostle so vehe- 
mently vindicates his own authority, refer to the other and 
less grateful side of the intelligence brought by Titus, namely, 
that a certain faction in the Church still showed a spirit of 
opposition, which had even grown into more direct personal 
hostility to the Apostle. But recent critics, viewing the mat- 
ter in connection with the supposed intermediate epistle, and 
with the mission of Timothy as well as Titus, believe the of- 
fender to have been the prime mover of the anti-Pauline party. 
Thus much seems clear, — that there were two distinct move- 
ments of opposition in the Corinthian Church : that already 
referred to as the Alexandrian, arising out of the preaching 
of Apollos ; and the Jewish, the partisans of which took the 
name of Cephas (Peter) for their watch-word. 145 The latter 
faction seems to have greatly strengthened by the arrival of 
some person or persons, who came with letters of commenda- 
tion from the Judaean Church, and who openly questioned the 
commission of him whom they proclaimed to be a self-consti- 
tuted Apostle. 146 As the spirit of opposition and detraction 
grew strong, it is supposed that the tongue of some member 
of the Church (more probably a Corinthian than the stranger 
or strangers) was loosed. He scoffed at St. Paul's courage 
and constancy, pointing to his delay in coining to Corinth, and 
making light of his threats. 147 He demanded proofs of his 
Apostleship. 148 He derided the weakness of his personal 
presence, and the simplicity of his speech. 149 He even threw 
out insinuations touching the personal honesty and self-devo* 
tion of St. Paul. 150 When some such attack was made openly 
upon the Apostle, the Church had not immediately called the 
offender to account ; the better spirit of the believers being 
cowed, apparently, by the confidence and assumed authority 



144 1 Cor. v. 

145 1 Cor. i. 12. The very word 
Cephas, which is the Chaldee form of 
Peter's name, and which only occurs 
elsewhere in the Gospel of John and 
the Epistle to the Galatians (i. 18, ii. 
9, 10, 14), sufficiently proves the di- 
rectly Jewish origin of this faction. 
Whether Peter himself had visited 
Corinth, is one of the disputed ques- 
350 2 Cor. i 



tions which we can only glance at. 
There is no direct authority in the N. 
T. for such a fact; but ecclesiastical 
tradition makes Peter a joint founder 
of the church at Corinth, as of those 
of Antioch and Kome. 

146 2 Cor.iii. 1, xi. 4, 12-15. 

147 2 Cor. i. 17, 23. 

148 2 Cor. xii. 11, 12. 

149 2 Cor. x. 10. 
12, xii. 17, 18, 



528 



St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVIL 



of the assailants of St. Paul. Such was the state of things 
which is supposed to have been reported to the Apostle, and 
which led to the mission of Titus, whose intelligence of the 
i-ebuke of the offender and the return of the better part of the 
Church to its allegiance caused the Apostle to write the Sec- 
ond Epistle, to smooth the way for his coming to the Church 
in restored harmony ; and while Titus, with the two brethren, 
carried it to Corinth, Paul himself remained to complete his 
work in Macedonia. 

In support of this view it is argued, that the usual inter- 
pretation of 2 Cor. ii. 5-11, as referring to the incestuous per- 
son of 1 Cor. v., does not account so satisfactorily for the 
whole tone of the Epistle, and for the particular expressions 
relating to the offender ; nor does it find places so consistent- 
ly for the missions of Timothy and Titus. Moreover, the lan- 
guage of 2 Cor. ii. 5-10 is quite natural upon the supposition 
that the Apostle had been the object of a personal attack ; 
while it seems unlikely that Paul would have treated the sin 
of the man who took his father's wife as an offense against 
himself, nor that he would have chosen to speak of it as a 
wrong done to another™ 1 — supposed to be the father. But 
these arguments seem hardly sufficient to counteract the first 
impression which the Epistle leaves upon a reader, that the 
Corinthians had removed the great source of trouble which 
had weighed upon the Apostle's mind, by repenting of their 
moral delinquencies and expelling the chief offender from 
their society, but that the conflict respecting Paul's Apostle- 
ship had grown to new dimensions, which called forth new 
assertions of his authority, made with an earnestness hardly 
intelligible on the supposition that it was his opponent who 
had been punished. The language of the Apostle on this 
point seems to refer to new matter which had arisen, not only 
since the divisions rebuked in the First Epistle, but since any 
other Letter that Paul may be supposed to have written be- 
fore the Second. Such is, in brief, the state of this controvert 
sy. What remains as certain is, that the harmony between 
the Apostle and the Corinthians had been sufficiently restored 
to excite the hope that he might come to them in love and joy ; 
but that there was still much even in regard to morality, as 



151 'A&Kia, 2 Cor. vii. 12 : "he that 
suffered wrong " is, upon this view, 
Paul himself. The difficulty of 
the whole question may be judged 
of from the division among the high- 
est authorities. The new view is 



held, wholly or in part, by Bleek, 
Credner, Olshausen, De Wette, ancj 
Neander; while Stanley, Alford, 
Davidson, and (with some hesitation] 
Conybeare and Howson, adhere to 
the common opinion. 



A.D. 57. . Occasion of the Epistle. 529 

well as party-spirit, to cause fears of a grievous disappoint- 
ment, — to avert which he sends before hhn this Second Epis- 
tle. 152 "Therefore" — he says — "I write these things, being 
absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to 
the power which the Lord hath given to me to edification, and 
not to destruction." 153 Whichever view we take of the cir- 
cumstances, the highly-wrought personal sensitiveness, the ebb 
and flow of emotion, so peculiarly characteristic of this Epis- 
tle, are as intelligible as they are noble and beautiful. Paul's 
protestations relating to his Apostolic work, and his solemn 
appeals to God and Christ, are in place ; and we enter into 
his feelings as he asserts his own sincerity and the openness 
of the truth which he taught in the Gospel. 154 We see what 
sustained him in his self-assertion ; he knew that he did not 
preach himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord. His own weak- 
ness became an argument to him, which he can use to others 
also, of the power of God working in him. Knowing his own 
fellowship with Christ, and that this fellowship was the right 
of other men too, he would be persuasive or severe, as the 
cause of Christ and the good of men might require. 155 If he 
was appearing to set himself up against the churches in Ju- 
daea, he was the more anxious that the collection which he 
was making for the benefit of those churches should prove his 
sympathy with them by its largeness. Again he would recur 
to the maintenance of his own authority, as an Apostle of 
Christ, against those w T ho impeached it. He would make it 
understood that spiritual views, spiritual powers, were real ; 
that if he knew no man after the flesh, and did not war after 
the flesh, he was not the less able for the building up of the 
Church. 156 He would ask them to excuse his anxious jealousy, 
hia folly and excitement, while he gloried in the practical 
proofs of his Apostolic commission, and in the infirmities 
which made the power of God more manifest ; and he would 
plead with them earnestly that they would give him no occa- 
sion to find fault or to correct them, 157 

§ 14. The remaining part of the interval between Paul's de- 
parture from Ephesus in May and his arrival at Corinth for 
the winter — an interval which he would naturally prolong, to 
give time for the Epistle to do its work — affords time, not 
only for his finishing the collection in Macedonia, but for that 
advance westward toward the shores of the Adriatic whict 
he mentions in words tha seem to contain an emphatic allu- 



152 2 Cor. xii. 19-21, xiii. 1-3.— 153 2 Cor. xiii. 10.— 15t Chaps, iii.. iv. 
>6 Chaps, iv., v.— 156 Chap. x.— 157 Chaps, xi., xii., xiii, 

X 



530 



/St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XV1L 



sion to the completion (at least in ontline) of the evangeliza- 
tion of the eastern division of the empire, preparatory to a 
movement npon Rome itself : — " So that from Jerusalem, and 
in a circuit as far as Illyricum, I have fulfilled the Gospel of 
Christ." 158 This view agrees well with Luke's brief notice of 
Paul's visit to Macedonia : — " When he had gone through 
those parts, 159 and had given them much exhortation, he came 
into Greece, and there abode three months." This passage, 
in which it is remarkable that even the name of Corinth is 
not mentioned, looks almost as if left to be filled up from the 
Apostle's letters. Among the many allusions to Corinth as 
the object of this journey, there is one in which he declares 
the distinct intention of wintering there ; 1G0 and, as we shall 
presently see, the time of his departure makes it clear that his 
three months' abode at Corinth extended from about the end 
of November, a.d. 57, to about the end of February, a.d. 58. 
Those three months might well have been fully occupied with 
the final settlement of the questions, and correction of the dis- 
orders, which fill so large a space in the two Epistles to the 
Church, and in visits to the other churches of the province of 
Achaia. But, amid these labors, the Apostle found time for 
the composition of that wonderfnl work, which has ever since 
formed the chief foundation of Christian theology. The blank 
left in the narrative of St. Luke is filled up by that colossal 
monument of the inspired genius of St. Paul, the Epistle to the 
Romans. The internal evidences, both of place and date, are 
not only perfectly distinct, but they show why the Epistle 
was written at this juncture. 101 Paul writes as the guest of 
Gains, whom we know as one of the most conspicuous mem 
bers of the Corinthian Church. 162 He sends salutations from 
E vastus, the chambevlain of the city, 163 from Timotheus his 
fellow-laborer, and from Sosipater, Avhom we presently fine 
accompanying him on his voyage from Greece to Asia. 164 

158 Rom. xv. 19. It should be re- 
membered that the division between 
the East and West, from the time of 
Octavian and Antony to that of Dio- 
cletian, was made at the Adriatic. 
Illyricum was now already used in 
the extended sense which included 
Dalmatia. (Comp. 2 Tim. iv. 10.) 

159 8u\9u)v ds tcl fikpr] ItctZva, Acts 
xx. 2. 160 1 Cor. xvi. 6. 

161 The commendation to the Bo- 
man Church of "Phoebe, a servant 
(or deaconess, Suikovov) of the church 
at Cenchreae," by no means implies 



that the Epistle was written from 
that port ; but simply that Paul 
availed himself of Phoebe's departure 
to forward it to Rome. The connec- 
tion would naturally be close between 
the churches of Cenchrese and Cor- 
inth ; and it may be observed, in 
passing, as an interesting fact, that 
the Christians of the port should have 
formed a community distinct from 
those of the city. 

162 Rom. xvi. 23. 163 Ibid. 

164 Rom. xvi. 21: comp. Acts xx. 
4. Among these salutations, it is in* 



A.D. 58. Epistle to tHe Romans. 531 

He mentions the completion, not only in Macedonia, but also 
in Achaia, of the collection, which he was then on the point 
of carrying to the poor saints at Jerusalem. 165 

This sacred mission of charity was now the only remaining 
hindrance to the gratification of a desire which he had cher- 
ished for many years, but which his labors in the East had 
hitherto postponed, to visit the Church of Rome, and even to' 
extend his western mission as far as Spain. 166 We have con- 
templated the Apostle on the track of Alexander : we now see 
him yearning, but in how much nobler a spirit, for the con- 
quest of new worlds. His great work of breaking up new 
ground, of planting the Churches, which his successors, like 
Apollos, were to water, was now done in the Greek division 
of the Roman world. " But now having no more place in 
these regions" 16T is a striking description of a completed work, 
as coming from one who, in every word as well as deed, lived 
in all good conscience toward God. May we not also regard 
them as a lesson when to leave to God the issues of a work, 
begun in faith and diligence, but far too vast to be finished in 
all its details ? Kor must we overlook the prominence which 
the Apostle assigns to one character of his work : " Yea ! so 
have I strived to preach the Gospel, not tohere Christ was 
named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation : 
but as it is written, to whom he was not spoken of, they shall 
see ; and they that have not heard shall understand." ies This 
he held to be an essential feature of that mission on which he 
was sent to the Gentiles, " ministering as a priest in the Gos- 
pel of God, 109 that the offering up of the Gentiles might be ac- 
cej) table, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost ;" 170 and, while 
he does not hesitate to declare that "he had something to 
boast of through Jesus Christ in the things pertaining to God," 
as to the fruits of his past labors, the same rule was to be his 
guide for the future. It is very striking that, ardent and long- 
cherished as was his desire to see his Christian brethren at 
Rome, he speaks of its approaching fulfillment as but a pass- 
ing visit, on his way to break up virgin soil for the good seed 
in Spain. 171 And accordingly (as also in the Epistle to the 



teresting to learn the name of the ] x. 13, 15, 16. The quotation is from 
brother who was St. Paul's amanuen- ! Is. Hi. 15. 

'itpovyovvra to evayyeXiov rov 
Osov. 170 Rom. xv. 16, 17. 

171 Rom. xv. 24, 28. " Whensoev^ 
er I take my journey into Spain, I wilf 
come to yon : for I trust to see you in 
ray journey, and to be brought en mv 



tie, salute vou in the Lord " (ver. 22). 

165 Rom." xv. 25-28. 

166 Rom. xv. 22-24. 

167 Rom. xv. 23. 

W8 Rom xv. 20, 21: comp. 2 Cor. 



532 St. PauC's Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 

Hebrews) the powerful arguments and earnest exhortations 
of the Epistle are marked by a tone different from that in 
which he addresses his own converts, as if they were the sub- 
stitute for a more direct ministration of the Word. 

The providence of God had appointed that Paul should do 
a greater and more permanent work at Rome, as the result of 
movements which form an affecting contrast to those which 
he thus shadows forth. The very errand of mercy to Jerusa- 
lem, which he regards as but a temporary delay of his inroad 
upon the West, was the cause of his being sent as a prisoner 
to the capital, where his two years' enforced residence provided 
for the work he had to do both among Jews and Gentiles. 
Nor does he write without a presentiment of this result, which 
was soon to ripen into a prophetic certainty. He entreats 
the Roman Christians, by their common Lord Jesus Christ 
and by the love of the Spirit, to wrestle together with him 172 
in their prayers to God on his behalf, " That I may be deliv- 
ered from the unbelievers in Jiidcea, and that my service for 
Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints ; that I may come 
unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be 
refreshed." 173 

§ N 15. The Epistle itself throws a clear light upon the pecul- 
iar motives, added to the general interest attaching to the 
capital of the world, which led the Apostle so ardently to 
cherish the desire, " I must also see Rome." The twofold as- 
pect of his life, as the converted Jew and the Apostle of the 
Gentiles, as the Christian missionary ever invading new prov- 
inces of heathendom, and the Hebrew of the Hebrews yearning 
for the salvation of Israel, would move him to deep sympathy 
with the Church of Rome ; nor could his honest pride in his 
Roman franchise fail to be another motive to labor for the 
spiritual freedom of his fellow-citizens. Regarding Rome 
solely from the classical point of view, we might be surprised 
—as many doubtless have felt surprise — at the perpetual ap- 
peal to Jewish feelings and associations, and the perpetual 
contest with Jewish prejudices, Avhich runs through the whole 
Epistle. But the readers of Horace and Juvenal are aware 



way thitherward by you, if first I be 
somewhat filled with your company. 
But now I go unto Jerusalem to min- 
ister to the saints. . . . When there- 
fore I have performed this, and have 
sealed to them this fruit, / will come 
by you into Spain." We shall have to 
recur to the support which this pas- 
sage is supposed to give to the tradi- 



tion that St. Paul actually visited 
Spain, and even extended his labors 
into Britain. It need only be ob- 
served in this place, that an intention 
can not of itself furnish historical ev- 
idence of the corresponding fact 
(See chap. xix. § 8.) 

172 crvvaybJViaaoBal fxoi, 

173 Rom. xv. 30-32. 



A.D. 58. Character of the Roman Church. 533 

how strong was the Jewish element in Roman society. We 
have already had occasion to notice the early propagation of 
Christianity among the Roman Jews ; and we shall soon see 
Paul, on his first arrival at the city, addressing himself as 
specially to them and meeting with the same obstinate un- 
belief, save from the few, as when he preached in the Eastern 
synagogues. Moreover, as if to anticipate the great usurpa- 
tion of the later Romish Church, this Christian society owed 
its foundation neither to St. Peter nor to any other Apostle, 
but appears, so to speak, as the spontaneous development of 
the Christian faith, introduced probably by the Jews who 
went up to the great Pentecost. 174 It was natural that such a 
community should have within it a peculiar element of Juda- 
ism, needing the correction which the Apostle supplies in the 
wonderful arguments of the Epistle, and exciting the ardent 
interest on behalf of Israel which is no less conspicuous 
throughout it. But it is equally clear that there was a strong, 
and perhaps even more numerous Gentile element in the 
Church ; an element, however, which seems to have been 
rather Greek than Roman. It may have been that foreigners 
resident in the capital had a tendency to gravitate toward 
one another, and that the Greeks, more familiar with the 
"peculiar people," did not regard them with the same aver- 
sion as the Romans did : but, whatever the explanation, noth- 
ing is more certain than the apparent paradox, that the 
Church of Rome was Greek rather than Latin. A curious in- 
dication of the relative proportion, both of Jews to Gentiles, 
and of Greeks to Romans, in the Church, is furnished by the 
long list of names in the salutation at the end of the Epistle. 175 
These names belong, for the most part, to the middle and low- 
er grades of society. Many of them are found in the colum- 
baria of the- freedmen and slaves of the early Roman empe- 
rors. It was among the less wealthy merchants and trades- 
men, among the petty officers of the army, among the slaves 
and freedmen of the imperial palace, " those that are of Caesar's 
household " 17S — whether Jews or Greeks — that the Gospel 
would first find a footing. The intimate personal element in 
some of the salutations at once attests the presence of Hellen- 

174 The fiction of St Peter's founda- circumstance which may perhaps re- 

tion of the Church of Rome will be duce the supposed preponderance of 

noticed afterward. (See chap. xix. § Gentiles in the Church. The empha- 

19-) sis laid on the word Gentiles in i. 13, 

1,0 Rom. xvi. 6-15. We must not, seems rather to refer to Rome than to 

however, forget the frequent use of the composition of the Church. (See 

Greek and Roman names by Jews, a ver. 15.) " 6 Philipp. iv. 22, 



534 St. Paul's Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVIL 

ist Jews, and adds another motive for St. Paul's deep interest 
in the Roman Church : — " Salute Andronicus and Junia, my 
kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the 
Apostles, who also were in Christ before me ; " — a graceful 
and affecting recognition of Christian precedence. 177 Among 
Paul's personal friends at Rome were now numbered Aquila 
and Priscilla, whose claims on the Apostle's affection and the 
gratitude of all the Church were enhanced by some special 
danger that they had incurred for his sake (the cause, perhaps, 
of their having left Ephesus again for Rome), 178 and whose 
house, as at Ephesus, was the place of meeting of a Christian 
society, which Paul recognizes as a church. 179 We can not 
doubt that many converts, made by Paul himself and the oth- 
er ministers of the Gospel throughout the empire, were con- 
tinually converging to Rome, and adding to the vigor of the 
Church, which had by this time gained such distinction that 
"their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world." 180 

This composition of the Church, and these personal relations 
of the Apostle to it, account for the peculiar tone which dis- 
tinguishes the Epistle to the Romans. While earnestly pray- 
ing that he might at length have a prosperous journey to come 
to them, as he had often proposed, that he might have some 
fruit among them, as among the other Gentiles — for, as the 
Apostle of the Gentiles, he was debtor both to the Greeks and 
the barbarians, to the wise and unwise, and was ready, to his 
utmost ability, to preach the Gospel at Rome also — he sup- 
plies the lack of his personal presence, and prepares for his 
coming by a grand manifesto of the Gospel as the one salva- 
tion for all the classes that were gathered in the composite 
Roman Church. "T am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; 
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
lieveth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." 181 That 
Gospel was invariably the announcement of Jesus Christ the 
Son of God, the Lord of men, who was made man, died, and 
was raised again, and whom his heralds present to the faith 
and obedience of mankind. Such a ta'jpvy^a might be variously 
commended to different hearers. In speaking to the Roman 



177 Rom. xvi. 7. This allusion to 
some imprisonment of St. Paul is an- 
other proof that the Acts does not 
give a complete account of his labors, 
and affords a confirmation of the 



onment would most naturally be 
shared by his kinsfolk. 

178 Rom. xvi. 3, 4: "Who for my 
life laid down their own necks." 
Some fancy that they rescued Paul in 



view which refers the record of his the tumult at Ephesus. 
sufferings in 2 Cor. xi. to the period 179 Ver. 5: "Likewise greet the 
of his early labors in Syria and Cili- ! church that is in their house.*' 
cia: for there it was that his impris- ! JH0 Rom. i. 8. 1H1 Rom. i. 16. 



A.D. 58. Contents of the Epistle. 536' 

Church, St. Paul represents the chief value of it as consisting 
in the fact, that through it the righteousness of God, as a 
righteousness not for God only, but also for men, was reveal- 
ed. It is natural to ask what led him to choose and dwell 
upon this aspect of his proclamation of Jesus Christ. The 
following answers suggest themselves: — (1.) As he looked 
upon the condition of the Gentile world, with that coup cVoeil 
which the writing of a letter to the Roman Church was 
likely to suggest, he was struck by the awful wickedness, the 
utter dissolution of moral ties, which has made that age infa- 
mous. His own terrible summary 182 is well known to be con- 
firmed by other contemporary evidence. The profligacy which 
we shudder to read of was constantly under St. Paul's eye. 
Along with the evil, he saw also the beginnings of God's 
judgment upon it. He saw the miseries and disasters, begun 
and impending, which proved that God in heaven would not 
tolerate the unrighteousness of men. (2.) As he looked upon 
the condition of the Jewish people, he saw them claiming an 
exclusive righteousness, which, however, had manifestly no 
power to preserve them from being really unrighteous. (3.) 
Might not the thought also occur to him, as a Roman citizen, 
that the empire, which was now falling to pieces through un- 
righteousness, had been built up by righteousness, by that 
love of order and that acknowledgment of rights which were 
the great endowment of the Roman people? Whether we 
lay any stress upon this or not, it seems clear that to one con- 
templating the world from St. Paul's point of view, no thought 
would be so naturally suggested as that of the need of the 
true Righteousness for the tw T o divisions of mankind. How 
he expounds the truth, that God's own righteousness was shown 
in Jesus Christ to be a righteousness which men might trust in — 
sinners though they were — and by trusting in it submit to it, 
and so receive it as to show forth the fruits of it in their own 
lives ; how he declares the union of men with Christ as sub- 
sisting in the Divine idea and as realized by the power of the 
Spirit, — may be seen in the Epistle itself. The remarkable 
exposition contained in ch. ix. x., xi., illustrates the personal 
character of St. Paul, by showing the intense love for his na- 
tion which he retained through all his struggles with unbe- 
lieving Jews and Judaizing Christians, and by what hopes he 
reconciled himself to the thought of their unbelief and their 
punishment. Having spoken of this subject, he goes on to 
exhibit in practical counsels the same love of Christian unity, 

182 Rom. i. 21-32. 



536 St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 

moderation, and gentleness, the same respect for social order, 
the same tenderness for weak consciences, and the same ex- 
pectation of the Lord's coming, and confidence in the future, 
which appear more or less strongly in all his letters. 

§ 16. The Epistle was sent by the hands of Phoebe to 
Rome, on the eve of St. Paul's departure for Jerusalem, which 
may be fixed about the end of February, as he was at Philip- 
pi at the Passover (March 27, a.d. 58). He was on the point 
of starting by sea for Syria, when the discovery of a Jewish 
plot to waylay him caused him to take the overland route by 
way of Macedonia. 183 But his traveling companions from the 
various places he had visited — associated with him, probably, 
in the mission of carrying the contributions of their respect- 
ive churches — went on by sea to Troas, doubtless carrying 
the money with them. 184 The resumption of the first person 
in the Acts indicates that Luke was the immediate companion 
of St. Paul ; and the details of the voyage are given with such 
precision that we can fix the daily dates with high proba- 
bility. 185 

The narrative of the Apostle's voyage begins from Philippi, 
whence Paul sailed " after the days of unleavened bread," that 
is, on the day following the eighth day of the feast (Tuesday, 
April 4th), and he reached Troas in five days (Saturday, 
April 8th). 186 He had remained there a full seven days, when, 
on the return of the first day of the week (Sunday, April 16th), 
the disciples came together to break bread, and Paul preached 
to them, ready to depart on the morrow. Here we have one 
of the incidental notices — more A^aluable than any formal state- 
ment, because they show how regularly the custom was estab- 
lished — of those meetings of the Christians on the Lord's Day 
for social converse and divine worship, which Pliny mentions 
as their only known institution. 187 Unable, for the most part, 
to withdraw from the service of their masters during the day, 
they met either — as Pliny tells us — before day-light, or, as on 
this occasion at Troas, after sunset. The congregation, like 
that of the first disciples at Jerusalem, met in an upper cham- 
ber, where Paul — for the time was not come when utterances 
out of the abundance of the heart were measured by the min- 

183 Acts xx. 3. ] Lewin in the Fasti Sacri ; and we 

184 Acts xx. 4. Their names were have followed his dates, which must 
Sopater of Bercea ; Aristarchus and not, however, be considered as estab- 
Secundus, of the Thessalonians ; Ga- lished with absolute certainty. 

ins of Derbe, and Timotheus ; and of 1Sfi Acts xx. G. 
Asia, Trophimus and Tychicus. 187 Comp. I Cor. xvi. 2 ; Rev. i 

188 This has been done by Mr. 10. 



A.D. 58. The Elders of Ephesus. 537 

ute — continued his discourse till midnight, and was only then 
interrupted by an accident. A youth named Eutychus, who 
was sitting in the window, overpowered with drowsiness 
through the heat of the many lamps, fell down from the third 
story and was taken up dead. The miracle by which Paul re- 
stored him to life resembled in form those performed by Eli- 
jah and Elisha, 188 while it again illustrated the compassionate 
saying of our Lord, — " The spirit indeed is willing, but the 
flesh is weak." Returning to the upper chamber, without 
waiting till the youth's friends had the comfort of seeing his 
full recovery (ver. 12), Paul broke bread and ate with the dis- 
ciples, and having talked with them till the break of day, de- 
parted. 189 

§ 17. To gain time for this protracted farewell, Paul had 
sent his companions befors him to the ship, and, while they 
doubled the promontory of Lectum, he took the snorter route 
by land to join them at Assos, whence they crosssed to Mity- 
lene (Monday, April 7th). Avoiding the windings of the 
coast, they sailed from Lesbos to Chios on the Tuesday, and 
on the next day to Samos, whence crossing over to the main- 
land, they stayed at the promontory of Trogyllium, and reach- 
•ed Miletus on Thursday, April 20th. Here they stopped, 
while Paul sent for the elders of the Church of Ephesus ; for 
his direct course had carried him across the bay at the bot- 
tom of which that city lies ; as the staying any time among 
his converts in Asia would have risked his purposed arrival 
at Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost. 100 The distance be- 
tween Ephesus and Miletus being about forty miles, the inter- 
val from the Thursday to the Sunday would give time for the 
arrival of the elders, with whom Paul held solemn converse, 
as on the Sunday before at Troas (Sunday, April 23d). His 
farewell discourse to them is one of his representative ad- 
dresses. It may be ranked with the Epistles, and throws the 
same kind of light upon St. Paul's apostolical relations to the 
churches. Like several of the Epistles, it is in great part an 
appeal to their memories of him and of his work. He refers 
to his labors in "serving the Lord" among them, and to the 
dangers he incurred from the plots of the Jews, and asserts 
emphatically the unreserve with which he had taught them. 
He tells them that he was receiving inspired warnings, as he 
advanced from city to city, of the bonds and afflictions await- 



188 Acts xx. 10: comp. 1 Kings 
xvii. 21; 2 Kings iv. 34. 

189 Acts xx. 7-12. The words 
c\d<rac aprov icai yevcrdfievoe proba- 

X 2 



bly refer to two distinct acts, the 
sacramental supper followed by a 
meal. 

190 Acts xx, 13-16. 



538 



St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVU 



ing him at Jerusalem. It is interesting to observe that the 
Apostle felt it to be his duty to press on in spite of these 
warnings. Having formed his plan on good grounds and in 
the sight of God, he did not see in dangers which might even 
touch his life, however clearly set before him, reasons for 
changing it. Other arguments might move him from a fixed 
purpose — not danger. His one guiding principle was, to dis- 
charge the ministry which he had received of the Lord Je- 
sus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God. Speaking tc 
his present audience as to those whom he was seeing for the 
last time, he proceeds to exhort them with unusual earnest- 
ness and tenderness, and expresses in conclusion that anxiety 
as to practical industry and liberality which has been in- 
creasingly occupying his mind. His warnings of false teach- 
ers and heresies — " the grievous wolves who would enter in 
among them," and " the men of themselves that would arise, 
speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them " 
— anticipate the evils that we find rife at Ephesus, in the 
Epistles to Timothy and the Apocalypse. Finally, " he kneel- 
ed down and prayed with them all : and they all wept sore, 
and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of 
all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face 
no more. And they accompanied him to the ship." 

§ 18. From this most affecting leave-taking the Apostle 
hastened on his voyage by the most direct course. Embark- 
ing immediately on the close of his address, he sailed straight 
to the island of Cos (Monday, April 24th), thence to Rhodes 
(Tuesday), and thence to Patara in Lycia (Wednesday), 
where, finding another ship bound direct for Phoenicia, he 
went on board (Thursday, April 27th), and, sighting Cyprus 
on the left hand, arrived at Tyre, where the ship was to un- 
load. The ordinary course of such a voyage would bring the 
Apostle to that ancient city on Sunday (April 30th) ; and an- 
other Lord's Day was cheered hy a welcome from certain dis- 
ciples, of whose existence in the city he seems not to have 
been aware. With them he spent a whole week, in the 
course of which the prophetic gifts poured out upon these 
Tyrian Christians were used to warn Paul against going on 
to Jerusalem. 191 How, in that one week, the Apostle gained 



191 Acts xxi. 1-4. The words, 
"who said unto Paul through the 
Spirit that he should not go up to 
Jerusalem," must not be misunder- 
stood, as if the Apostle disobeyed a 
divine command in still going for- 



ward. His own teaching in the 
Epistles, concerning spiritual gifts, 
clearly shows the distinction between 
the supernatural knowledge confer^ 
red and the application made of it. 
The disciples, endowed by the Spiri? 



A.D. 58. 



Paul's Fifth Visit to Jerusalem. 



539 



the affection of these new-found brethren, was proved by the 
concourse in which, with their wives and children, they 
brought him and his company out of the city to the sea-shore, 
where all kneeled down together and prayed before the voy- 
agers went on board. 

§ 19. Supposing that, as at Troas and Miletus, Paul spent 
the Lord's Day with the Tyrian Christians, his voyage to Ptol- 
emais (Acre) would occupy the Monday, and his one day's 
stay there with the brethren, the Tuesday (May 9). 192 On the 
following day Paul and his company proceeded, apparently 
by land, to Csesarea, and took up their abode with "Philip 
the Evangelist, one of the Seven," a description which doubt- 
less refers to those who are usually called Deacons. 193 The 
four virgin daughters of Philip prophesied, probably repeat- 
ing former warnings, which were now most plainly uttered by 
Agabus, whom we have already seen predicting the famine 
in the reign of Claudius. 194 This prophet came down from 
Jerusalem to Csesarea, apparently for the express purpose of 
staying Paul's course. Imitating the symbolic methods of 
the ancient prophets, he bound his own hands and feet with 
Paul's girdle, declaring, in the name of the Spirit, that the 
Jews at Jerusalem would even thus bind the owner of that 
girdle, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. Upon 
hearing this, even St. Paul's own companions joined in the en- 
treaties of the brethren of Csesarea, that he would not go up 
to Jerusalem. The Evangelist, who tells us of this final ap- 
peal in which he himself joined, thus records its issue: — 
" Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break 
mine heart? For I am ready, not to be bound only, but also 
to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And 
when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will 
of the Lord be done." 195 So, after a stay of several days at 
Csesarea, they packed up their little baggage, and went up, 
doubtless on foot, by the usual road to Jerusalem, 196 accom- 



with the prophetic knowledge of Paul's 
coming dangers, would naturally add 
their own entreaties that he would 
avoid the danger. The fuller narra- 
tive of the similar scene at Cassarea 
(vv. 10-14) puts the matter in its true 
light. 

192 Acts xxi. 6, 7. 

193 Acts xxi. 8: comp. vi. 5. There 
can be no reasonable doubt that this 
"Philip the Evangelist" was the 
same who discharged that office for 



the Samaritans and the Ethiopian 
eunuch (Acts viii.). 

194 Acts xi. 28. 

195 Acts xxi. 8-14 : comp. Isaiah 
xx. 2, 3 ; Jer. xiii. 1-11 . The proph- 
ecy derives, perhaps, the greater force 
from the fact that it was delivered at 
the place where Paul was kept a 
prisoner for two vears. 

196 Acts xxi. 15, 16. The A.V. 
here uses the word carriage, for that 
which a traveler carries, as in Judg, 



540 8t. Paul's Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVIi. 

panied by an aged disciple of Cyprus, name Mnason, who had 
offered them a lodging in the crowded city. 

§ 20. This fifth visit of St. Paul to Jerusalem since his con- 
version is the last of which we have any certain record. The 
state of the city, thronged with the excited multitudes who 
had come up to the Feast of Pentecost, might well recall to 
him, not only the warnings that had encountered him at every 
step, but the deed of blood in which he himself, twenty-five 
years before, had played the part for which he never ceased 
to feel remorse. He was welcomed with joy by the brethren, 
and on the following day (Thursday, May 18th) he had an 
interview with James and all the elders of the Church, to 
whom " he declared particularly what things God had wrought 
among the Gentiles by his ministry." 197 Among those things, 
besides the spiritual fruits which he had raised, the temporal 
fruits of charity which he had gathered in return for his poor 
Jewish brethren would naturally find a place, and we may as- 
sume that Paul and his delegated conrpanions handed over 
the contributions from the respective churches. But St. 
Luke passes over this incident, to relate the events that led to 
the Apostle's apprehension ; and, indeed, concern for his char- 
acter and safety seems to have been the thought uppermost 
in the minds of the brethren. For the great crisis had now 
come in the relations between the spirit of Judaism and the 
Apostle of the Gentiles ; nor was it only from the unconverted 
Jews that the danger threatened. The Jewish Christians, 
whether resident at Jerusalem or present at the feast, now 
amounted to " many thousands," but their understanding of 
the Gospel had not kept pace with their numbers : they were 
" all zealous of the law." To them, and to the unconverted 
Jews, Paul was known as one who had taught with pre-emi- 
nent boldness that a way into God's favor was opened to the 
Gentiles, and that this way did not lie through the door of 
the Jewish Law. He had founded numerous and important 
communities, composed of Jews and Gentiles together, which 
stood simply on the name of Jesus Christ apart from circum . 
cision and the observance of the Law. He had thus roused 



xviii. 21,1 Sam. xvii. 22. The bet- ! If Paul stayed, as at Troas, Mile- 
ter reading is iirioictvaadntvoi, having j tus, and Tyre, to spend a farewell 
packed up. Interpreting the y/tspag j Lord's Day with the brethren, and 
7r\aovg (ver. 10) by the Apostle's j started on the Monday, he would ar- 
intention to reach Jerusalem at Pen- I rive at Jerusalem on the Wednesday 
teeost, Mr. Lewin makes the stay at | (May 17th), on the evening of which 
Caesarea to have lasted from Wednes- ! dav the feast began, 
day, May 10th, to Sunday, May 14, I " m Acts xvii. 17-19. 



A.D. 58. Assault on Paul in the Temple. 541 

against himself the bitter enmity of that unfathomable Jewish 
pride, which was almost as strong in some of those who had 
professed the faith of Jesus as in their unconverted brethren. 
This enmity had for years been vexing both body and soul of 
the Apostle. He had no rest from its persecutions ; and his 
joy in proclaiming the free grace of God to the world was 
mixed with a constant sorrow that in so doing he was held to 
be disloyal to the calling of his fathers. He had now come 
to Jerusalem " ready to die for the name of the Lord Jesus," 
but he had come expressly to prove himself a faithful Jew, 
and this purpose emerges at every point of the history. His 
brethren at Jerusalem now suggest to him a mode of accom- 
plishing this object. While glorifying God for the work 
which had been done among the Gentiles, they do not conceal 
from Paul that the calumnies against him have gained belief 
among the Jewish Christians. The specific charge, was, not 
simply that he kept Gentile believers free from the yoke of 
the Law — for this was in accordance with the decision of the 
Jewish Church itself — but that "he taught all the Jews 
among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought 
not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the 
customs." To refute this charge, there was a practical op- 
portunity. 

Four men connected with the Church had bound them- 
selves, as we have seen Paul himself doing, by a temporary 
ISTazarite vow, and their purification upon the completion of 
the vow was at hand. This ceremony involved a considera- 
ble expense for the offerings to be presented in the Tem- 
ple ; :98 and it was a meritorious act to provide these offer- 
ings for the poorer Nazarites. St. Paul was requested to put 
himself under the vow with the other four, and to supply the 
cost of the offerings. He at once accepted the proposal, and 
on the next day, having performed some ceremony which im- 
plied the adoption of the vow, he went into the Temple, an- 
nouncing that the due offerings of each Nazarite were about 
to be presented, and the period of the vow terminated, 199 a 
process which would occupy seven days (Friday, May 19). 

The week was almost accomplished, when certain Jews 
from Asia, probably some of Paul's old antagonists at Ephc 
sus, recognized him in the Temple. They had already seer 
with him in the city Trophimus, an Ephesian Greek, whom 
they chose to think that Paul had brought into the Temple. 

""Num. vi. 13-21.— 199 Acts xxi. 17-26. Agrippa I. had ingratiated 
himself with the Jews by defraying these expenses for certain Nazarites 



542 St-. Pauls Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII 

So they roused a tumult among the people, and set upon Paul 
with the cry : — " Men of Israel help ! This is the man that 
teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, 
and this place : and further, brought Greeks also into the 
temple, and hath polluted this holy place !" The whole city 
was raised: the people rushed together to the T^Jnple, and, 
unwilling to defile it with blood, dragged Paul out from the 
court of the women into the outer court, the doors being im- 
mediately shut by the Levitical guard of the Temple. 200 The 
Apostle's career would have been ended by a process more 
summary than that of Stephen, had not the alarming tidings 
been carried to the tribune in command of the Roman co- 
hort* 01 stationed in the fort Antonia, that all Jerusalem was 
in an uproar. Calling out a body of soldiers and centurions, 
he ran down into the Temple court, and at his appearance 
Paul's assailants stayed their blows. Having bound Paul 
with two chains, which fastened each of his arms to a soldier, 
and being unable to learn from the people's confused cries 
who he was and what he had done, he ordered him to be car- 
ried into the fort ; but, on reaching the stairs, such a rush 
was made by the disappointed mob after their victim, that 
Paul had to be borne in the soldier's arms. 202 

This whole scene, and the vigorous measures of the trib- 
une, will be better understood in their connection with the 
existing state of Judaea. The energetic but cruel government 
of Felix had goaded the disaffected Jews to desperation. In 
the preceding year (a.d. 51), the high-priest Jonathan had 
been murdered in the Temple; an act followed by the or- 
ganization of the bands of terrorists called Sicarii or Assas- 
sins. Next after this murder, Josephus relates the appear- 
ance of an Egyptian impostor, who led out 4000 of these As- 
sassins into the Desert, 203 and, returning at the head of 30,000 
men, whom he had deluded into the belief that he was the 
Messiah, and that he would restore the kingdom to Judah, he 
encamped on the Mount of Olives, threatening to overpower 
the Roman garrison, and promising that the walls of Jerusa- 
lem should fall down. He w^as attacked by Felix, and his 
followers dispersed or slain, the Egyptian himself escaping. 204 



200 Acts xxi. 27-30. 

20J Acts xxi. 31 : r^J x^^PXV r *7C 
cnrHpi]Q. The name of this officer, 
Claudius Lysias, which seems to im- 
ply a Greek freedman of the late em- 
peror, is first mentioned in his letter 
to Felix, ch. xxiii. 26. 

202 Acts xxi. 31- 3G. 



203 Acts xxi. 38, tZayaywv tig n]v 
tprj/xov Tovg TerpciKicrxiMovg dvcpag 
Tu>v micapiiov, where our Version 
conceals both the force of the article 
rovg and the specific sense of the 
word (TiKapiojv. 

204 Joseph. Ant. xx. 8, § 6 ; B. J. 
ii. 13, § 5. As Lysias evidently re* 



A.D. 58 St. PauVs Defense before the People. 543 

The idea now occurred to Lysias that Paul was this Egyp- 
tian, and great was his surprise when his prisoner, just as 
they reached the entrance to the castle, addressed him in 
Greek, asking leave to speak with him. Paul removed his 
suspicion by telling him who he was : — " I am a Jew of Tar- 
sus, in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city ; and, I beseech thee, 
suffer me to speak unto the people." The permission was 
granted, and Paul, standing on the stairs, and having with a 
sign of his hand gained the silent attention of the people, be- 
"gan to address them : " Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye 
my defense now made unto you." As soon as they heard 
that he spoke in Hebrew, that is, in the then current Aramaic 
dialect of Palestine, the silence became the more profound, 
and Paul had at length the opportunity, to gain which was 
one motive of his pressing on to Jerusalem, of addressing the 
angry Jews in his own justification. 205 His defense consists 
of a simple historical statement of the events of his own life, 
as a Jew, — born indeed at Tarsus, yet " brought up in this 
city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the perfect 
manner of the law of the fathers, and zealous toward God, as 
ye all are this day."' 206 How he had proved that zeal as a 
persecutor of the Christians, the high-priest and all the eld- 
ers could bear him witness. He had been manifestly arrest- 
ed in that course by the vision of Jesus of Nazareth, on the 
way to Damascus. We have already compared this with the 
other narratives of his conversion ; but here we should ob- 
serve how the present purpose of the Apostle explains what 
is special in this address. The great point is, that his course 
was changed by a direct operation upon his spirit from with- 
out, and not by the gradual influence of other minds upon 
his. Incidentally, we may see a reason for the admission that 
his companions " heard not the voice of him that spake to 
me" in the fact that some of them, not believing in Jesus 
with their former leader, may have been living at Jerusalem, 
and possibly present among the audience. Hence, too, he 
mentions that Ananias, who interpreted the will of the Lord 
to him more fully at Damascus, was a devout man according 
to the Law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt 

fers to this insurrection as a recent; 206 Acts xxii. 3. This is no mere 
event, and as such movements gen- 1 conciliatory compliment, for Paul 
erally took place at the great festivals, j had recently expressed, in very ear- 
it may be inferred as probable that | nest words, the same judgment of his 
this affair of the Egyptian occurred I countrymen : "I bear them record 
at the Passover of a.d. 58. I that they have a zeal of God, but not 

206 Acts xxii. 1,2. I according to knowledge " (Rom. x. 2) 



544 St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 

there, and that he made his communication in the name of 
Jehovah, the God of Israel. In the same spirit, he proceeds 
to relate that the next great revelation, that by which he re- 
ceived his full commission, was made to him as he was pray- 
ing in the Temple, which he was falsely charged with pro- 
faning. There it was that, while he would gladly have pro- 
longed his ministry at Jerusalem, he received the divine 
*varning to make haste and depart, for they would not re- 
ceive his testimony. He repeats to his hearers the argument, 
which he had pleaded with the Lord himself — their knowl- 
edge of his persecution of the Christians and his consent to 
Stephen's death — as a reason why his testimony should be 
impressive at Jerusalem above all other places : but only to 
receive now the confirmation of the answer given to him then. 
The Lord had said, " Depart, for I will send thee far hence 
unto the Gentiles ;" — and no sooner had he reached this 
point, than the storm of animosity burst forth anew. " They 
gave him audience unto this word:" — they could bear the 
name of the Nazarene, though they despised it ; but the 
thought of that free declaration of God's grace to the Gen- 
tiles, of which Paul was known to be the herald, stung them 
to fury : they lifted up their voices, and said — " Away with 
such a fellow from the earth : for it is not fit that he should 
live !" Their cries were accompanied with frantic gestures ; 
they cast off their clothes, as if to stone Paul, and threw dust 
into the air ; and the tribune, ignorant of the language in 
which Paul had spoken, could only suppose that he had given 
some strong ground for such indignant fury. To learn what 
this, was, he brought him into the castle, and commanded 
him to be examined by scourging. The soldiers were already 
binding him with thongs to the post, when Paul calmly ask- 
ed the centurion in command, "Is it lawful for "you to scourge 
a man that is a Roman and uncondemned ?" The warning 
was forthwith carried by the centurion to the tribune, who, 
hastening to learn the truth from Paul, was more and more 
surprised to hear that the prisoner, on whom he had already 
inflicted the indignity of chains, was free-born, while he him- 
self — doubtless as an imperial freedman, had only obtained 
the franchise for a large sum. 207 

Having now learned that the question at issue regarded 
the Jewish religion, the tribune summoned the chief priests 
and Sanhedrim to meet on the following day,* 08 when, having 

807 Acts xxii. I Mr. Lewin. The Sanhedrim proba* 

208 Tuesday, May 23d, according to I bly met in the hall called Gm : »ih, 



A.. IX 58. 



St. Paul before the Sanhedrim. 



545 



toosed Paul from his bonds, he placed him before them. We 
need not suppose that this was a regular legal proceeding. 
If, on the one hand, the commandant of the garrison had no 
power to convoke the Sanhedrim, on the other hand, he would 
not give up a Roman citizen to their judgment. As it was, 
the affair ended in confusion, and with no semblance of a ju- 
dicial termination. St. Paul appears to have been put upon 
his defense; and, with the peculiar habit, mentioned else- 
where also, of looking steadily when about to speak, 209 he be 
gan to say — " Men and brethren, I have lived in all good con 
science " — or, to give the full force of the original, 210 " I have 
lived a conscientiously loyal life unto God, until this day," — - 
when a scene was enacted which is most interesting in a 
historical as well as a personal point of view. 

Ananias, who presided over the Sanhedrim as high-priest, 
had been appointed to that office by Herod, king of Chalcis, 
in a.d. 48. In a.d. 52 he was sent to Rome by the prefect 
Ummidius Quadratus, to answer before Claudius on a charge 
of oppression brought against him by the Samaritans. 211 The 
result is doubtful ; but the best solution seems to be that 
Ananias was not formally deposed, but as, during his suspen- 
sion, Jonathan had been appointed in his place, the latter had 
continued to exercise the office till his murder by the Sicarii 
in a.d. 57, when Ananias resumed his functions. The high- 
priest's character for violence and lawlessness 212 suggests 
that a guilty conscience assumed the guise of zeal against 
blasphemy, when he at once interrupted Paul by ordering the 
by-standers to smite him on the mouth. " God shall smite 
thee, thou whited wall!", exclaimed the Apostle; "for sit- 
test thou to judge me after the lav/, and commandest me to 
be smitten contrary to the law ?" 213 The by-standers, who 
seem to have hesitated to execute the high-priest's hasty 
order, now remonstrated with the Apostle, "Revilest thou 
God's high-priest ?" The apology of Paul, while proving his 
respect for the Law and its dignitaries, and his readiness to 
" render honor to whom honor was due, and custom to whom 



which was divided from the stairs of 
the Antonia only by a narrow space 
of the Temple Court. 

209 Acts xxiii. 1, arevlvag: comp. 
Acts xiii. 9. The same word is 
used of the fixed attention with which 
the Sanhedrim regarded Stephen 
when before them (Acts vi. 15). 

210 7rtTro\'iTEvnai : comp. 2 Timothy 
i.3. 



211 Joseph. Ant. xx. 6, § 2. 

212 Joseph. Ant. xx. 9, § 2. 

213 Besides the emphatic injunc- 
tions to judges to do no injustice, and 
not to condemn without a hearing 
(e. g. Lev. xix. 35, John vii. 51), 
there seems to be an allusion to the 
specific law regulating the infliction 
of blows on a man found worthy to 
be beaten (Ueut. xxv. 2). 



546 St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey, chap. XVli. 

custom," has suggested the dilemma, How could he have 
been ignorant of the person and office of Ananias, who had 
been so* long high-priest, and who was now conspicuous by 
his place and dress ? how, if ignorant, could he have uttered 
a prophecy which was soon so strikingly -fulfilled ? An ex- 
planation, both natural in itself and agreeable to the grammar 
of the Greek text is, that Paul said, " I wist not, brethren, 
that it teas the high-priest [who spoke] : for it is written, 
Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people :" — that, 
with his attention absorbed in his own thoughts, and also, it 
may be, from that defective sight, which some regard as his 
" thorn in the flesh," he heard the command, without noticing 
the quarter from which it came, and uttered a rebuke equally 
applicable to any member of that synod of judges who was 
guilty of such injustice. His indignation itself has been ob- 
jected to on moral grounds, and even St. Jerome draws an 
unfavorable contrast between the vehemence of the Apostle 
and the meekness of his Master. But that Master has set the 
example of a righteous indignation in denouncing these very 
rulers ; and his own comparison of them to " whited sepul- 
chres " suggested the Apostle's image of a wall whose fresh- 
whitened surface concealed the rottenness which was totter- 
ing to its fall. On each of the many such hypocrites who sat 
before him, the Apostle might well denounce the doom, " God 
shall smite thee ;" and there is no difficulty in regarding the 
special fitness of his words to Ananias — who was deposed 
by Felix and afterward murdered by the Sicarii — as one of 
the innumerable examples of unconscious prophecy. 

It would seem that the high-priest's violence provoked re- 
monstrances in the Sanhedrim itself ; for so can we best ex 
plain the division which Paul perceived between the Saddu 
cees and Pharisees. Seeing all' chance of a fair hearing gone, 
he used this opportunity in a way for which he has again been 
censured on moral grounds. Those who are so keen to detect 
a disingenuous artifice, in the division which Paul's profession 
of faith stirred up, might have given him credit for consider- 
ing the result of his open identification with the Pharisees, 
which assuredly brought him no permanent advantage. This 
is an argumentum act hominem; but the true solution is to 
be found in the spirit of Paul's whole conduct during his visit 
to Jerusalem. He had not come thither to escape out of the 
way of danger ; but, at the risk of bonds and death, to recon- 
cile the sincere Jews, if possible, to the Gospel as the fulfill- 
ment of the Law. He desired to prove himself a faithful Is* 
raelite by his very testimony to Him whom God had raised 



A.D. 58. St. Paul before the Sanhedrim. 547 

from the dead. Both these objects might naturally be pro- 
moted by an appeal to the nobler professions of the Pharisees, 
whose creed, as distinguished from that of the Sadducees, was 
still, as it had ever been, his own. Of that creed, faith in the 
risen Lord was the true fulfillment. He wished to lead his 
brother Pharisees into a deeper and more living apprehension 
of their own faith ; and seeing now the hopelessness of gain- 
ing over the Sadducees, he made a last appeal to the party of 
which there remained any hope. In the same honest spirit in 
which, on the previous day, he had declared his zeal for the 
Law, as a point of contact with his zealous countrymen, he 
now proclaimed his faith in the resurrection as the common 
ground on which he invited the Pharisees to join him ; and 
those who object to the first clause of his speech should re- 
member that its true force lies in the last clause : — " Men and 
brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee : of the hope 
and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." 214 This 
view is fully confirmed by Paul's own allusion to the present 
scene in his defense before Felix, when he appealed to the 
Jews themselves to say whether they had found any offense 
in him as he stood before the Sanhedrim, " except for this one 
voice, which I cried standing among them, Touching the res- 
urrection of the dead I am called in question by you this 
day." 21 " This is no apology for haste in uttering that cry, 
but the deliberate repetition of what he knew to be the true 
ground of the charge against him, just as he again told the 
Jews at Rome, "For the hope of Israel I am bound with this 
chain." 216 

Paul's profession of faith caused dissension m the council, 
the Scribes of the Pharisees' party going so far as not only 
to declare him guiltless, but to renew the former suggestion 
of Gamaliel, — " What if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to 
him?" 21Gb The tumult grew, till the tribune, fearing lest 
Paul should be torn asunder by them, sent the soldiers down 
to bring him back to the castle by force. In the night, after 
this agitating day, the Apostle was comforted by another 
vision of the Lord, who stood by him and said, " Be of good 
cheer, Paul : for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so 
must thou bear witness also at Rome." 217 So, then, he was 



214 Acts xxii. 6. 

215 Acts xxiv. 21. 

216 Acts xxviii. 20. 

216b Acts xxiii. 9 : ci Se 7rvtvjxa 
i\akr}otv clvtq r) dyytXog; This is the 



tence being perhaps broken off by the 
derision of the Sadducees at the idea 
of an angel speaking to Paul. The 
words p) dtojiaxCjixn are evidently a 
gloss imported from Acts vi. 39. 



reading of the best MSS., the sen- ' 217 Acts xxiii. 11. 



548 St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII. 

to be guided by that unerring Hand, though by a path he 
had not proposed, to the goal he had so much desired ; and 
we can understand the calmness which this assurance gave 
him amid the trials, imprisonment and shipwreck of the next 
two years. 

His enemies, meanwhile, alarmed doubtless at the indecis- 
ion of the Sanhedrim, resolved to end his course then and 
there. 218 The day had no sooner dawned than more than 
forty Jews bound themselves under a great curse, that they 
would eat nothing till they had slain Paul ; and, going to the 
chief priests and elders, they desired them to ask the tribune 
to bring Paul again before the Sanhedrim on the morrow, 
when they would fall upon him and kill him. The plot be- 
came known to Paul's sister's son, who obtained admission to 
the castle to see his uncle, and, by his direction, informed the 
tribune of it privately. The latter having charged the young 
man to keep his secret, took instant measures to send Paul 
away by night under a sufficient guard. The morning saw 
him safe at Antipatris, beyond all danger of an ambush : so 
the legionaries returned to Jerusalem, and the cavalry alone 
brought him the same day to Cassarea. With him a letter 
was sent from the tribune to the procurator Felix, explaining 
the case, informing him that the prisoner was a Roman citi- 
zen, and guiltless of any thing deserving death or bonds, and 
promising that Paul's accusers should follow him to Caesa- 
rea. 219 From this letter we learn that the tribune was called 
Claudius Lysias, a name worthy to rank, for the fairness, en- 
ergy and prudence of his dealings with St. Paul, among those 
soldiers who have made their profession honorable in the 
pages of the New Testament. 

Antonius (who is also called Claudius) Felix, was an impe- 
rial freedman like Lysias ; but, as we have already seen, a 
man of a very different character; and the mean vices, which 
he joined to his cruelty and arrogance, may be clearly seen 
in the few graphic touches in which Luke relates the procu- 
rator's treatment of the Apostle. For the present, he was 
content to ask Paul of what province he was ; and, being an- 
swered, of Cilicia, he promised him a hearing as soon as his 

218 Wednesday, May 24th, according to Mr. Lewin. This vow of the 
fortv Jews has its parallel in that of the Ten who conspired against Herod. 
(See p. 82). 

219 Acts xxiii. 12-30. The respect paid to a Roman citizen is seen in 
the credit which Lysias claims for rescuing Paul, "having understood 
that he was a Roman," and in his suppression of the fact that he onl^ 
learned thia when he was about to scourge him. 



A.D. 5& St. Paul before Felix. 549 

accusers should arrive. Meanwhile, he ordered the prisone* 
to be kept — chained probably to a soldier — in the govern- 
ment-house, which had been the palace (prcetormm) of Herod 
the Great. 220 

§ 21. St. Paul was henceforth, to the end of the period em- 
braced in the Acts, in Roman custody. This custody was in 
fact a protection to him, without which he would have fallen 
a victim to the animosity of the Jews. He seems to have 
been treated throughout with humanity and consideration. 
His own attitude toward Roman magistrates was invariably 
that of a respectful but independent citizen*, and while his 
franchise secured him from open injustice, his character and 
conduct could not fail to win him the good-will of those into 
whose hands he came. Even Felix, convinced of the justice 
of the cause, and influenced by his Jewish wife Drusilla, 
treated him with consideration ; but he showed at once his 
arbitrary character and that " servile ingcnium " with which 
Tacitus has branded him, by keeping Paul a prisoner in the 
hope of obtaining a bribe for his release. Five days after 
Paul's arrival at Caesarea, and just twelve since he had reach- 
ed Jerusalem, 221 Ananias and the elders came down to Oaasa- 
rea, with a certain orator named Tertullus. 222 There is scarce- 
ly a more striking contrast in the records of oratory than 
that between the fulsome harangue of this hired advocate and 
the manly simplicity of St. Paul's defense. After addressing 
the governor with flattery which Felix must have felt to be 
bitter satire, Tertullus changes his tone to rank abuse when 
he comes to speak of Paul, showing exactly the light in 
which he was regarded by the fanatical Jews. He is a pesti- 
lent fellow {\oifx6c) ; he stirs up divisions among the Jews 
throughout the world ; he is a ringleader of the sect (or here- 
sy, aipeaeug) of the Xazarenes : his last offense had been an 
attempt to profane the Temple : and the orator complains 
that, when they would have judged him according to their 
law, the tribune Lysias had taken him violently out of their 
hands, commanding his accusers to appear before Felix, who 
might now examine them, and learn the charges they pre- 
ferred. 823 When the assenting clamor of the Jews had 
ceased, and the governor had beckoned to Paul to speak, he 

820 Acts xxiii. 31-35. E2 We have seen the custom of era- 

221 Acts xxiv. 1, 11 : Tuesday, May ~ ploying such professional advocates 
30th, according to Mr. Lewin. The before the Roman tribunals, in the 
second passage confirms Paul's ar- 1 pleadings of Nicolaus Damascenus 
rival at Jerusalem just before the j on behalf of Herod and Archelaus. 
Pentecost. W3 Acts xxiv. 1-9. 



550 St. PauUs Third Missionary Journey. Chap. XVII 

expressed his pleasure in making his defense before one who 
had been " for many years a judge unto this nation." 224 It 
was only twelve days since he had come up to Jerusalem to 
worship ; and with that simple object all his conduct there 
had been consistent. " They neither found me in the Temple 
disputing with any man, neither raising up the people, neither 
in the synagogues, nor in the city: neither can they prove 
the things whereof they now accuse me." He admits and 
glories in the charge of being a leader of what they called 
the Nazarene sect; for so he best preserved the religion of 
his nation : — " This I confess unto thee, after the way which 
they call heresy, so worship I the God ox my fathers:" — and 
he again appeals to that hope, which even they allowed, of a 
resurrection of the dead. Because of this hope, he once 
more protests, he exercised himself to have always a con- 
science void of offense toward God and man. Acting upon 
such motives he had returned to Jerusalem, after an absence 
of several years, 225 bringing alms and offerings to his nation. 
He had not even entered the Temple without being first puri- 
fied, and there was no multitude nor tumult about him when 
the Jews of Asia found him there. They were absent, who 
ought to have been there if they had any charge to make; 
but to the Jewish rulers, who were present, he boldly appeals 
whether his sole offense was not that profession of faith in 
the resurrection which he had made before the council. 

Felix saw the truth of Paul's case the more clearly as he 
had acquired a pretty exact knowledge of Christianity, which 
had gained its first Gentile converts among the troops sta- 
tioned at Csesarea. 226 Unwilling, however, to offend the Jews 
by at once setting the Apostle free, he made an excuse for 
postponing the hearing till the arrival of the tribune Lysias, 
committing Paul to the custody of a centurion, with orders 
to grant him every indulgence and the society of his friends. 
Among those friends, besides Luke and Aristarchus, and the 
family of Philip the deacon, may have been Cornelius, the 
centurion, whom Peter had received into the Church, as the 
first Gentile convert, in that very garrison in which Paul was 

224 Acts xxiv. 10. Felix had been \ Jewish causes, to which Paul ap 
appointed in a.d. 52 ; and the six j peals. 

years' interval might well be de- j 225 Acts xxiv. 17 : SI Irwv dk n\ew- 
scribed as £k ttoWwv It&v, in compar- I vojv. It was four years, or four and 
ison with the ordinary duration of a half, since his last visit in a.d. 53 
the procuratorship. At all events or 54. 

the period was long enough to have; 226 Acts xxiv. 22: aicpi(3k(TTfpo7. 
given Fcstus that familiarity with '' tldug to. -mpi rFjc; udov : comp. Acts x 



A.D. 58. Imprisonment at Ccesarea. 551 

now in a centurion's custody. It seems to have been to grat- 
ify the curiosity of his Jewish wife Drusilla, the daughter of 
Herod Agrippa I., that, on his return to Caesarea after an ab- 
sence, Felix again sent for Paul, to hear him concerning the 
faith in Christ. But the Apostle, who could at the proper 
time discourse with the most powerful arguments concerning 
Christian doctrine, how saw before him only the violent and 
unjust governor, with the paramour whom he had seduced 
from her husband Azizus, king of Emesa; and he reasoned 
of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. A li- 
centious Roman officer, with a brother able to protect him at 
the imperial court, was not the man to be easily alarmed ; but 
a more mighty force even than his dread of Caesar assailed his 
conscience; and he only retained the self-destructive power 
of warding oft' repentance by delay. "Felix trembled, and 
answered, Go thy way for this time ; when I have a conven- 
ient season, I will call for thee." It is a trite comment, that 
the convenient season never came ; but the truth was worse 
than this. Felix often sent for Paul, and communed with him 
during the two years of his detention, but with no higher ob- 
ject than the sordid hope of being bribed to free him. 

In the following year, the city of Caesarea, where Paul was 
thus kept a prisoner, was the scene of one of the frequent and 
frightful tumults between the Jews and the Syrian Greeks, 
A.i). 59. Felix was denounced to the emperor for either or- 
dering or conniving at a massacre of the Jews, and he was re- 
called to answer for his conduct at the same time that Domi- 
tius Corbulo succeeded Ummidius Quadratus as prefect of Syr- 
ia. This was two full years after the beginning of St. Paul's 
imprisonment in May, a.d. 58, and Pokcius Festus, who ac- 
companied Corbulo as procurator of Judaea, would reach his 
destination about July, a.d. 60. 227 How the arrival of the new 
governor obtained for Paul the hearing which Felix had so 
long postponed, and how the Apostle's appeal to Caesar led to 
his imprisonment at Rome, will be related in the next chapter. 

227 This, as we have already had occasion to observe, is one of the best as- 
certained dates in the life of St. Paul; since it is clear that Festus held the 
government for two years, and that Albinus succeeded him in a.d. 62. 




Csesarea. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



ST. PAULS FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 
BEFORE FESTUS TO HIS RELEASE- 



FROM HIS HEARING 

-a.d. 60-63. 



§ 1. Results of St. Paul's Imprisonment at Cassarea — Arrival of Porcius 
Festus as Procurator — Paul's first hearing — He appeals to Caesar. 
§ 2. Arrival of Agrippa and Bernice — Paul's Defense before Agrippa — 
Decision to send him to Rome. § 3. The Voyage and Shipivreck of St. 
Paul— Minute truthfulness of the narrative, as tested by recent investi- 
gations. § 4. Routes of maritime traffic — Paul's embarkation under 
the charge of Julius — His companions, Aristarchus and Luke — The 
voyage commenced toward autumn. § 5. Intended course of the ship — 
Ccesarea to Sidon — Advei'se winds — Voyage to Myra — Transference to 
the ship of Alexandria. § 6. From Cnidus into the open sea, then un- 
der the lee of Crete — Fair Havens — The season of navigation past — Un- 
heeded warning of St. Paul— Attempt to run for Port Phoenix. § 7. 
The ship caught in a typhoon (Euroclydon) — Clauda — Preparations 
against the storm— Under girding— The Syrtes— The ship drifts on the 
starboard tack— Her course and rate. § 8. The fortnight's drift in 
Adria— St. Paul's vision in the night— Promise of escape. § 9. Signs 
of land— Anchoring during the night— Paul's last encouragement-^ 



A.D. 60. St. Paul at Cmsarea. 553 

The dawn of day. § 10. Position of the ship in St. Paufs Bay, Malta — 
Running her on shore — The shipwreck and escape — St. Paul's former 
shipwrecks — His use of nautical images. § 11. The island of Melita 
(Malta): its people, and its primate Publius — Reception and miracles 
of St. Paul — He spends here the three winter months. § 12. Voyrgo 
from Malta, in the "Castor and Pollux," to Syracuse, Rhegium and 
Puteoli — Journey by land to Rome — The Christians meet Paui at Appii 
Forum and the Three Taverns. § 13. Paul delivered to the Praetorian 
prefect, Bukrus — His condition as a prisoner in the Prastorium — His 
two conferences with the Jews — Their rejection of the Gospel, terminat- 
ing the first stage in the history of its foundation — Prophecy of their 
future restoration in the Epistle to the Romans — Paul preaches to the 
Gentiles — Conclusion of the Acts. § 14. St. Paul's two years' impris- 
onment at Rome — Causes for the delay of his trial — His labors and 
converts — Progress of the Gospel at Rome — His companions during his 
imprisonment: Luke, Aristarchus, Epaphras, Timothy, Mark, Dcmas, 
and Tychicus. § 15. Four Epistles written by St. Paul from Rome — 
Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians, at the same time, and somewhat 
earlier than Philij>pians. § 16. The Church at Colossi, and the Epis- 
tle to the Colossians — Corruptions from Judaie-m, angel-worship, and 
asceticism — The supreme headship of Christ. § 17. Onesimus and 
Philemon — Paul's Epistle to Philemon — His teaching concerning slav- 
ery. § 18. The Epistle to the Ephesians — Points in common with Colos- 
sians — Its special and sublime teaching. § 19. The Epistle to the Phi- 
Uppians — Paul's prospects at this time: his danger, resignation, and 
hope — Changes at Rome : Burrus, Seneca, Poppaea — Probable acquittal 
and release of the Apostle — Theory of a single imprisonment disproved. 
§ 20. The Epistle to the Hebrews written at the close of Paul's first im- 
prisonment — Internal proofs of Pauline authorship — Allusions to the 
persecution by Ananus in Judaea — The martyrdom of St. James — Indi- 
cations of time and place, and of the writer's conditions and intentions 
—The writer is contemplating a visit to Jerusalem. 

§ 1. The whole career of the Apostle Paul is an illustration 
of that special providence of which he himself was assured by 
a series of divine revelations. Many an outburst of indigna- 
tion has been provoked by the sordid injustice which kept 
him in prison for two years; many a sigh of regret upon 
reading the sentence, " This man might have been set at lib- 
erty, if he had not appealed to Caesar." l But, as Paul's 
transference to Rome as a prisoner " fell out for the further- 
ance of the Gospel " at the very centre of Roman power, 2 so 
his detention in Roman custody at Caasarea proved his pro- 
tection not only from the murderous plots of the Jews, but 
from the bloody conflict between them and the Syrian Greeks 
in the very city where he was confined (a.d. 59). Nor is this 
the only reason that can be discovered for an interruption of 
two whole years in the last part of the Apostle's life. " As 
Paul might need the repose of preparation in Arabia, before 

1 Actsxxvi.32. 2 Phil. i. 12-14. 

Y 



554 PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIII. 

he entered on his career, so his prison at Caesarea might be 
consecrated to the calm meditation, the less interrupted 
prayer, which resulted in a deeper experience and knowledge 
of the power of the Gospel. Xor need we assume that his 
active exertions for others were entirely suspended. 'The 
care of all the churches ' might still be resting on him ; many 
messages, and even letters, of which we know nothing, may 
have been sent from Caesarea to brethren at a distance. And 
a plausible conjecture fixes this period and place for the 
writing of Luke's Gospel under the superintendence of the 
Apostle of the Gentiles." 3 

At length the great Corbulo succeeded Ummidius Quadra- 
tus as prefect of Syria ; and Felix, having been sent to Rome 
to answer the complaints of the Jews and Samaritans, was 
succeeded by Porcius Festus, whose arrival may be placed 
about the midsummer of a.d. 60. 4 The procurator gave an 
earnest of his honest vigor by going up from Caesarea to 
Jerusalem three days after his arrival. 5 A new governor, 
anxious to gain favor with his subjects, was naturally assailed 
with petitions ; and so Festus was now met by the chief 
priests and elders with urgent informations and demands for 
judgment against Paul. 6 They entreated as a favor that Fes- 
tus would send for him to Jerusalem, while they had laid an 
ambush to kill him on the way. Festus, without seeing 
through their plot, defeated it by keeping to his duty as 
a magistrate : — " It is not the manner of the Romans to de- 
liver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the 
accusers face to face, and have license to answer for himself 
concerning the crime laid against him." 7 So he told them 
that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, whither he ordered the 
accusers to accompany him. 8 He returned thither after ten 
days, and on the next day Paul was placed before the tribu- 
nal. The charges brought against him by the Jews from 
Jerusalem were many and grevious according to their law; 
but they were unable to prove them ; and Paul was content 
to protest his innocence, " Neither against the law of the Jews, 
neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I of= 

3 Conybeare and Howson, vol. ii. p. 1 an imperial edict had ordered them 
354. Some have even supposed that j to set out before the loth of April, 
the Epistles of " Paul the prisoner " — A procurator generally accompanied 
those to the Ephesians, Colossians, \ his prefect, and the voyage to Syria 



and Philemon — were written from 
Caesarea ; but internal evidence clear- 
ly refers them to Rome. 

4 To remedy the abuse of newly- 
appointed prefects lingering at Rome, 



occupied about three months (Lewin, 
F. S.). 5 Acts xxv. 1. 

6 Acts xxv. 2, 15. tveQavKxav . 
alrov/ievoi kcit cwtov clicr]v. 

7 Acts xxv. 16. * Acts xxv. 5. 



A.D. 60. The Appeal to Ccesar. 555 

fended any thing at all." 9 The governor, fresh from Rome, 
and ignorant apparently of the interest which Christianity 
had excited even there, was surprised to hear nothing of the 
charges he had expected ; but that, as he contemptuously tells 
Agrippa, they had certain questions against him of their own 
superstition, and of one Jesus, ichich was dead, whom Paul 
affirmed to be cdive — an incidental proof of what we have 
seen before, that the controversy between Paul and his ac- 
cusers turned upon the resurrection. 10 

This theological complexion of the case gave Festus an ex- 
cuse for the proposal, which he really made in order to grati- 
fy the Jews, when he asked Paul whether he would go to 
Jerusalem and there be judged before him of these matters. 
Enough had transpired already of the murderous plots of the 
Jews to put the Apostle on his guard ; and he had in his 
power a certain means of averting the danger of the govern- 
or's compliance — the Ccesarem appello — which was the ulti- 
mate safeguard of the Roman citizen. "We can not but sup- 
pose that a sudden inspiration opened his eyes to the path by 
which he might be carried to the long-desired goal of his 
hopes at Rome. Once more, as at Philippi and in the An- 
tonia, he asserts his rights with a dignified composure, which 
rebuked the judge's vacillation and reminded him of his 
limited power : — " I stand at Caesar's judgment-seat, where I 
ought to be judged : to the Jews have I done no wrong, as 
thou very icell knoicest. For if I be an offender, or have 
committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: 
but if there be none of these things whereof they accuse me, 
no man may deliver me unto them c I appeal uxto CLe- 
sar." " These two bold words, uttered by a Roman citizen, 



9 Acts xxv. 6-8. 

10 Acts xxv. 18, 19. From St. 
Paul's own account of the motives of 
his appeal (Acts xxviii. 18, 19) we 
may gather that his defense, and 
especially his vindication of the resur- 
rection, called forth a clamorous 



of which, without any written process, 
made the appeal complete. The right 
of appeal (provocatio) in criminal 
cases from the sentence of a magis- 
trate to the judgment of the whole 
body of his fellow-citizens was the 
privilege of every Roman, from the 



demonstration from the Jews, which , earliest period in the history of the 
threatened — as in the case of Jesus ! state. Its remote origin is concealed 



before Pilate — to overbear the ex- 
pressed intention of the procurator to 
let him go (ver. 18). " But ivhen the 
Jews spake against it, I was con- 
strained to appeal unto Caesar." 

11 Kaiaapa tTTLKaXovfiai, the Greek 
equivalent for the Latin formula, 
Ccesarem appello, the mere utterance 



under the beautiful legend of the ap- 
peal of the surviving Horatius from 
the sentence of death passed on him 
by King Tullus for his sister's murder 
(Liv. 1. 26); and its formal enact- 
ment, under the Republic, was the 
chief of the laws by which P. Valeri- 
us gained the surname of Poplicola 



556 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Borne. Chap. XVIIi 



were a spell which a far less worthy magistrate would not 
have dared to resist ; and Festus, after consulting with his 
assessors, had only to declare — "Thou hast appealed unto 
Caesar. Unto Caesar shalt thou go." It is hardly clear 
whether these abrupt words indicate the procurator's annoy- 
ance at having the decision taken out of his hands, in which 
he probably desired to do justice in the end, or his satisfac- 
tion at getting rid of a case difficult in itself, and likely to em 
broil him with the Jews at the very outset of his govern- 
ment. 12 

§ 2. The case before the procurator was now at an end ; 
and it only remained to send the prisoner to Rome. While 
waiting for an opportunity, Festus had to draw up an ac- 
count of the charge on which Paul was sent for trial ; and it 
was no easy matter to place a mere question of Jewish " su- 
perstition " before Nero in a satisfactory form. He was in 
this difficulty, when Agrippa and his sister Bernice arrived at 
Caesarea to congratulate the new governor. Several days were 
spent in ceremony and festivity before Festus mentioned the 
case of Paul to Agrippa, who, being informed by the gov- 
ernor of all that had passed, expressed a desire to hear the 
man. On the following day, Agrippa and Bernice took their 
seats on the tribunal beside Festus, with that royal pomp to 
which Luke refers as an eye-witness, surrounded by the mili- 
tary tribunes and the chief men of the city ; and Paul, bound 
by a chain to his warder, w^as set before them. Not with- 
holding his judgment that the prisoner had done nothing 
worthy of death^ Festus explained the motive for this renew- 
ed hearing, namely, to avail himself of the advice of the king 
and the council as to what precise charge he ought to lay be- 



(b.c. 508). Like the British Magna 
Charta, it was confirmed on several 
occasions, the most important being 
its re-enactment by M. Valerius, aft- 
er the right had been taken away by 
the Decemvirs (b.c. 449). There was, 
however, a distinction between this 
provocatio ad populum, which implied 
a previous sentence, and the appellatio, 
by which a citizen invoked the power 
of a magistrate, and especially the aid 
of a tribune (the tribunicium auxiliuni) 
to protect him from a wrong, whether 
inflicted, or only threatened. But, 
as the emperors united in themselves 
the ancient privileges of the people 
and the powers of the tribunes (tfib- 



unicia j>otestas~), the two kinds of ap- 
peal were naturally confounded ; and 
there is nothing surprising in Paul's 
appeal before Festus had given judg- 
ment. In relation, also, to Fes- 
tus's proposal that the case should 
be transferred to Jerusalem, Paul 
may perhaps be regarded as ap- 
pealing from the mixed authority 
of the Jewish and Koman courts to 
the pure Roman law at its fountain- 
head. 

Ji Acts xxv. 9-12, 20, 21. The 
narrative of St. Luke (in verses 1-12) 
should be carefully compared with 
Festus's own account of the mattel 
to Agrippa in verses 14-22. 






A.D. 60. Defense before Agrvppa. 557 

fore Augustus : — " Wherefore I have brought him forth before 
you, and especially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, aftei 
examination had, I might have somewhat to write. For it 
seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not with- 
al to signify the crimes laid against him." 13 Such was the 
occasion given to the Apostle to " bear the name of Jesus be- 
fore Gentiles and before kings ;" and to this audience, com- 
posed of all that was most august both of the Jews and Ro- 
mans at Caesarea, he pronounced the most memorable and 
impressive of his great apologies for Christian truth, and for 
his own mission as the Apostle to the Gentiles, a point on 
which he now fitly lays especial stress, while vindicating also 
his consistency as a faithful Jew. 

In this discourse, 14 we have the second explanation from St. 
Paul himself of the manner in which he had been led, through 
his conversion, to serve the Lord Jesus instead of persecut- 
ing his disciples, and the third narrative of the Conversion 
itself. Speaking to Agrippa as to one thoroughly versed 
in the customs and questions prevailing among the Jews, 
Paul appeals to the weli-known Jewish and even Pharisaical 
strictness of his youth and early manhood. He reminds the 
king of the great hope which continually sustained the wor- 
ship of the Jewish nation, — the hope of a deliverer, prom- 
ised by God himself, who should be a conqueror of death. 
He had been led to see that this promise was fulfilled in 
Jesus of Nazareth ; he proclaimed his resurrection to be the 
pledge of a new and immortal life. What was there in this 
of disloyalty, to the traditions of his fathers? Did his 
countrymen disbelieve in this Jesus as the Messiah ? So had 
he once disbelieved in him, and had thought it his duty to be 
earnest in hostility against his name. But his eyes had been 
opened : he would tell how and when. The story of the Con- 
version is modified in this address as we might fairly expect it 
to be. We have seen that there is no absolute contradiction 
between the statements of this and the other narratives. The 
main points, — the light, the prostration, the voice from 
heaven, the instructions from Jesus, — are found in all three. 
But in this account, the words " I am Jesus whom thou per- 
secutest" are followed by a fuller explanation, as if then 
spoken by the Lord, of what the work of the Apostle was to 
be. The other accounts defer this explanation to a subsequent 
occasion. But when we consider how fully the mysterious 
communication made at the moment of the Converse ov m- 

13 Acts xxv. 13-27. " Acts xxvi. 



558 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIII. 



eluded what was afterward conveyed, through Ananias and 
in other ways, to the mind of Paul, and how needless it was 
for Paul, in his present address before Agrippa, to mark the 
stages by which the whole lesson was taught, it seems merely 
captious to base upon the method of this account a charge of 
disagreement between the different parts of the history. 
They bear, on the contrary, a striking mark of genuineness in 
the degree in which they approach contradiction without 
reaching it. It is most natural that a story told on different 
occasions should be told differently ; and if in such a case we 
find no contradiction as to the facts, we gain all the firmer 
impression of the substantial truth of the story. The particu- 
lars added to the former accounts by the present narrative 
are, that the words of Jesus were spoken in Hebrew, and that 
the first question to Saul was followed by the saying, " It is 
hard for thee to kick against the goads." (This saying is 
omitted by the best authorities in the 9th chapter.) The 
language of the commission, which St. Paul says he received 
from Jesus, deserves close study, and will be found to bear a 
striking resemblance to a passage in Colossians. 15 The ideas 
of light, redemption, forgiveness, inheritance and faith in 
Christ, belong characteristically to the Gospel which Paul 
preached among the Gentiles. Not less striking is it to 
observe the older terms in which he describes to Agrippa his 
obedience to the heavenly vision. He had made it his busi- 
ness, he says, to proclaim to all men " that they should repent 
and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance :" — words 
such as John the Baptist uttered, but not less truly Pau- 
line. 1513 And he finally reiterates that the testimony on ac- 
count of which the Jews sought to kill him was in exact 
agreement with Moses and the prophets. They had taught 
men to expect that the Christ should suffer, and that he 
should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should 
show light unto the people and to the Gentiles. Of such a 
Messiah Paul was the servant and preacher. 10 

At this point Festus began to apprehend what seemed to 



15 Col. i. 12-14. 

15b Compare Paul's language at 
Athens, p. 479. 

16 "There never was any that un- 
derstood the Old Testament so well 
as St. Paul, except John the Baptist, 

and John the Divine Oh, he 

dearly loved Moses and Isaiah, for 
they, together with King David, were 
the chief prophets. The words and 



things of St. Paul are taken out of 
Moses and the prophets." (Luther's 
Table Talk, ccccxxviii., English 
Translation.) Another striking re- 
mark of Luther's may he added here : 
"Whoso reads Paul may, with a 
safe conscience, build upon his 
words ; for my part, I never read 
more serious writings," (Table Talk 
xxiii.) 



A.D. 60. Defense before Agrippa. 559 

him a manifest absurdity. He interrupted the Apostle dis- 
courteously, but with a compliment contained in his loud re- 
monstrance. "Thou art mad, Paul; thy much learning is 
turning thee mad." The phrase rh troWa ypafifxara may possi- 
bly have been suggested by the allusion to Moses and the 
prophets ; but it probably refers to the books with which St. 
Paul had been supplied, and which he was known to study, 
during his imprisonment. As a biographical hint, this phrase 
is not to be overlooked. " I am not mad," replied Paul, 
" most noble Festus : they are words of truth and soberness 
which I am uttering." Then, with an appeal of mingled dig- 
nity and solicitude, he turns to the king. He was sure the 
king understood him. " King Agrippa, believest thou the 
prophets ? I know that thou believest." The answer of 
Agrippa can hardly have been the serious and encouraging 
remark of our English version. Literally rendered, it appears 
to be, You are briefly persuading me to become a Christian ; 
and it is generally supposed to have been spoken ironically. " I 
would to God," is Paul's earnest answer, " that whether by a 
brief process or by a long one, not only thou but all who hear 
me to-day might become such as I am, with the exception of 
these bonds :" 17 — he was wearing a chain upon the hand he 
held up in addressing them. With this prayer, it appears the 
conference ended. Festus and the king, with their companions, 
consulted together, and came to the conclusion that the accused 
was guilty of nothing that deserved death or imprisonment. 
And Agrippa's final answer to the inquiry of Festus was, 
" This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not 
appealed unto Caesar." 

§ 3. At each step in the record of the Acts, we have found 
some fresh occasion to admire the exact knowledge and truth- 
fulness of the writer, as confirmed by every incidental allusion 
that he has occasion to make. Indeed, if the life of St. Paul 
is of itself a sufficient moral evidence of the truth of Chris- 
tianity, the narrative of his labors by St. Luke is a critical evi- 
dence no less conclusive. And as the former has been summed 
up in the narrow issue of Paul's conversion, so we might even 
be content to stake the latter on the story of his voyage and 
shipwreck. 18 It is just where a landsman makes the most ri- 
diculous exposure of his ignorance, that the historian has ven- 
tured on details as minute as those of 1 a Marryat or a Cooper, 

17 Acts xxvi. 28, 29. The precise subject of much discussion. The 
meaning of the lv oXlycp of Agrip- best MSS. have lv fieyaXq) instead of 
pa, and the answering icai lv 6Xty^> Lv troWy. 
cat lv iro\\({i of Paul, has been the! I8 Acts xxvii. 



560 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIIL 



but with the addition of other allusions to matters of fact, as 
to places, seasons, winds, and currents ; without, in either 
case, exposing one single Haw to the keenest professional 
criticism. Of this there can be but one explanation: that, 
being an eye-witness of all the incidents, and an observer as 
intelligent as he was honest, he simply recorded in plain 
words what he saw and heard. Nor can Ave doubt that the 
Spirit, under whose guidance he wrote, led him to place these 
minute details upon the record, expressly to afford a test of 
that record itself; and we have reason for devout thankful- 
ness that the test has been most thoroughly applied, and most 
satisfactorily borne, in our own time. 19 The result of this in. 
vestigation has been that several errors in the received version 
have been corrected, that the course of the voyage has been 
laid down to a very -minute degree with great certainty, and 
that the account in the Acts is shown to have been written by 
an accurate eye-witness, not himself a professional seaman, but 
well acquainted with nautical matters. 

§ 4. The Roman empire had no packet service, nor were 
shijDS of war usually employed for the transport of prisoners 
from the provinces to Rome. But for such a purpose, as 
well as for ordinary passengers, ample opportunities were 
furnished by the great lines of commercial traffic over the seas 
which had been long since effectually cleared of pirates. 
There were the main lines, of which the most important, in 
the East, was that of the vessels that carried the corn of 
Egypt from Alexandria to Italy, and particularly to the port 
of Puteoli ; and it was in two such ships that Paul made the 
chief portions of his voyage. 20 Then there was the coasting 
trade, Avhich (in the Levant) was chiefly conducted by the 



19 The investigation of St. Paul's | 
voyage and shipwreck, from this point ] 
of view, lias been made independent- j 
lv by two writers, whose labors com- | 
bine the practical knowledge of the 
seaman with the judgment of the non- 
professional critic, availing himself 
of all the results of nautical and hy- 
drographical science. (1.) The late 
Admiral Sir Charles Penrose en- 
trusted his MSS. on the subject to Dr. 
Howson ; (2.) Alexander Smith, 
Esq., of Jordanhill, has discussed j 
every point with the most minute and 
masterlv criticism in his Voyage 
and Shipwreck of St. Paul (1848). 
besides revising the twenty - third 



chapter of Conybeare and Howson'a 
St. Paul, which contains a com- 
plete summary of the whole matter. 
Mr. Lewin has examined the chrono- 
logical details with his usual care, and 
his dates are given in the text as the 
best approach to certainty that can 
be attainable in such calculations. 

20 Dr. Howson cites examples of the 
use of such merchant vessels even by 
imperial personages. It was in mer- 
chant ships that Vespasian sailed from 
Alexandria to Rhodes, and thence to 
Greece, and that Titus afterward 
sailed from Alexandria, touching at 
Pthegium and Puteoli, like Paul in 
his voyage from Malta. 



A.D. GO. 



The Voyage to Rome. 



561 



Greeks of Asia Minor, of whose vessels we have already seen 
Paul making use. It was in such a ship, belonging to Ad- 
ramyttium, 21 that he now set sail, with other prisoners, under 
the care of Julius, a centurion of the Augustan cohort, whose 
conduct in the sequel entitles him to a place among the mil- 
itary worthies of the New Testament. 22 The number of the 
prisoners appears to have been considerable ; and, from the 
then state of Judaea, we may infer that there were among 
them leaders of the Sicarii, and other fierce fanatics, who 
would be no friendly company for Paul. But he was cheer- 
ed by the society of "the beloved physician," and of the 
Thessalonian Aristarchus, his constant' fellow-traveler, who 
had accompanied him from Macedonia, and now became his 
fellow-prisoner at Rome. 23 That the voyage was commenced 
about the end of summer, in order to reach Italy before win- 
ter, is evident from the subsequent mention of the Great 
Fast, 21 



21 Adramyttium, or Atramyttium, 
was a sea- port in the province of 
Asia, situated in the district ancient- 
ly called JEolis and also Mysia. (See 
Acts xvi. 7.) Adramyttium gave 
and still gives its name to a deep 
gulf on this coast, opposite to the 
opening of which is the island of 
Lesbos. St. Paul was never at Ad- 
ramyttium, except perhaps during his 
second missionary journey, on his way 
from Galatia to Troas (Acts xvi.), 
and it has no Biblical interest, except 
as illustrating his voyage from Caesa- 
rea in the ship belonging to this 
place (Acts xxvii. 2). The reason is 
given in what follows, viz., that the 
centurion and his prisoners would 
thus be brought to the coasts of Asia, 
and therefore some distance on their 
way toward Rome, to places where 
some other ship bound for the west 
would probably be found. Ships of 
Adramyttium must have been fre- 
quent on this coast, for it was a place 
i'of considerable traffic. It lay on the 
■great Roman road between Assos, 
Troas, and the Hellespont on one 
side, and Pergamus, Ephesus, and 
Miletus on the other, and was con- 
nected by similar roads with the in- 
terior of the country. According to 
tradition, Adramyttium was a settle- 
Y 2 



ment of the Lydians in the time of 
Croesus : it was afterward an Athe- 
nian colony : uuder the kingdom of 
Pergamus, it became a sea-port of 
some consequence ; and in the time 
of St. Paul Pliny mentions it as a 
Roman assize-town. The modern 
Adramyti is a poor village, but it is 
still a place of some trade and ship- 
building. 

22 Acts xxvii. 1. The "Augustan 
cohort " was probably a detachment 
of the Praetorian' Guards attached to 
the person of the governor of Caesa- 
rea. Julius is supposed to have been 
the same as Julius Priscus, who rose 
from the rank of centurion to that of 
Praetorian Prefect (Tac. Hist. ii. 92, 
iv. 11). 

23 Acts xix. 29, xx. 4 ; Philem. 24; 
Col. iv. 10. It seems clear that Ar- 
istarchus was involved in the same 
charge with Paul ; but whether this 
was so with Luke is concealed by 
that habitual reticence with which he 
forbears to claim any share in the 
Apostle's labors and sufferings. His 
modesty has had its reward in the 
testimony of Paul, and in the holy 
fame of the writer of the Gospel an<| 
of the Acts. 

24 The following is Mr. Lewin's cal- 
culation : — Fcstus arrives about mid- 



562 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIH 



§ 5. The ship, in which Julius embarked with his prisoner, 
intended to touch at several places on the coast of proconsu- 
lar Asia, on the way to her own port of Adranryttium ; 25 but 
an opportunity might offer, even sooner, of finding some ves- 
sel bound direct for Italy, at one of the Lycian ports (Patara 
or Myra) or at Cnidus, where the lines of traffic met. 
Launching from Cgesarea, they touched on the following day 
at Sidon, where, by the kindness of Julius, who doubtless al- 
ready saw the difference between Paul and his other prisoners, 
he was permitted to visit his friends and received their affec- 
tionate care. 26 Here the delays of the voyage began with 
contrary winds, — doubtless the W. and 1ST.W. winds which 
prevail during the late summer, directly in the teeth of their 
proper course for Patara or Cnidus, past the south of Cyprus. 
So they sailed under the lee of that island, and through the 
seas of Cilicia and Pamphylia ; where, beside the lands winds 
moderated by the shelter of the chain of Taurus, they would 
have the aid of the current which sets N.W. and W. past the 
eastern point of Cyprus and along the south coast of Asia 
Minor into the iEgsean. Thus they reached the port of 
Myra in Lycia, where they fell into the great line of the 
Egyptian corn-trade, and found a corn-ship of Alexandria 
bound for Italy ; and to this vessel Julius transferred his pris- 
oners. 27 



summer, June 24. Goes to Jerusa- 
lem after 3 days, say 2 for the jour- 
ney; stays there more than 10 days 
(say 14 with the return) ; hears Paul 
(1 day) ; the interval before Agrippa's 
visit (say 10 days) and the "several 
days " of festivity (say 7 days) ; the 
hearing before Agrippa (1 day) ; the 
preparations for the voyage 20 days : 
in all 58 days, bringing us to August 
21st for the sailing from Csesarca. 
Of course the dates are only meant 
to be approximate. 

25 Acts xxvii. 2. fisXXovreg tcX&v 
rovg Kara tx\v 'Aaiav roizovg dvrixOt]- 
fffv, where the first person may indi- 
cate the usual identification of the 
passenger with his vessel rather than 
the intended route of Julius and 
Paul. 

26 Acts xxvii. 3; iTrifitXtiag tv^hv. 
The distance from Caesarea to Sidon 
is 67 miles. Paul may have visited 
the city during his early labors in Syr- 
ia and Cilicia. 



27 Myra, with its fine harbor at An 
driace, on the same meridian as Alex- 
andria, seems to have been a usual 
rendezvous for ships bound from 
Egypt to Italy, when the winds were 
contrary. A captain in the merchant 
service informed Dr. Howson that in 
coming from Alexandria in August, 
he has stood to the north toward 
Asia Minor for the sake of the cur- 
rent, and that this is a very common 
course. Mr. Lewin supposes that 
Julius had intended to keep in the 
Adramyttian ship, and that the un- 
expected presence of the Alexandrian 
ship at Myra caused him " most un- 
luckily to change his plan," and to 
adopt the direct course, with the risks 
of a late season, in preference to the 
safer route by the .ZEgasan and across 
the Isthmus. From the number of 
passengers on board this ship of Alex- 
andria, and making allowance for her 
not being a transport, but a mer- 
chantman heavily laden, Admiral 



A.D. 60. The Voyage to Cnidus and Crete. 568 

§ 6. The voyage was very slow as far as Cnidus, at the 
S.W. headland of Caria, 28 where " they lost the advantages of 
a favoring current, a weather-shore, and smooth water, and 
encountered the full force of the adverse wind as they open- 
ed the ^Egcean." They made Cnidus with difficulty, and, 
finding it impossible to pursue their direct course for Cythera 
(off the southern point of Peloponnesus) against the N".W 
wind, they ran down to the southward, and, doubling Sal 
mone, the eastern headland of Crete, they beat up with diffi 
culty under the lee of the island, as far as the fine harbor, 
near Lasaea, which still bears its ancient name of the Fair 
Havens.™ Beyond this the coast runs out to the south in the 
headland of Gape Matala, on doubling which they would 
have met the full force of the N.W. wind over an open sea 
and on a lee shore ; so that they were altogether wind-bound, 
and remained here a long time. 

Meanwhile the navigation had grown dangerous, for it was 
past the season of the Great Jewish Fast (the Day of Atone- 
ment), which fell this year exactly at the autumnal equinox 
(Sept. 23d), the limit fixed by ancient writers to sea voyages. 
Paul now interposed the first of his warnings, in terms which 
imply that he spoke under divine guidance, as well as with 
much former experience of " perils in the sea :" 30 " Sirs, I per- 
ceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, 
not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives." But 
the centurion, with whom the decision rested, preferred the 
judgment of the owner and the master of the ship. 31 Fair 



Penrose calculates her burden at up- 
ward of 500 tons. 

2S Cnidus is mentioned in 1 Mace. 
xv. 23, as one of the Greek cities 
which contained Jewish residents in 
the second century before the Chris- 
tian era. It was a city of great con- 
sequence, situated at the extreme 
S.W. of the peninsula of Asia Minor, 
on a promontory now called Cape 
Crio, which projects between the 



29 Actsxxvii. 7, 8. Ka?.ol Al/iever, 
now Ai/ieover Ka/orc. The ruins of 
Lasrea, still bearing the same name, 
were discovered by a yachting party 
in 1856. Mr. Lewin calculates the 
voyage from Sidon to Cnidus at not 
less than a month, and thence to 
Fair Havens about a week, bringing 
us to about the 26th of September. 

30 2 Cor. xi. 26. 

31 "That St. Paul was allowed to 



islands of Cos and Khodes (see Acts j give advice at all implies that he was 
xxi. 1). Cape Crio is in fact an i already held in a consideration very 
island, so joined by an artificial : unusual for a prisoner in the custody 
causeway to the mainland as to form j of soldiers." (Howson.) That slavery 
two harbors, one on the N., the other to the letter which finds a contradic- 
on the S. The latter was the larger, j tion between the Apostle's first warn., 
and its moles were noble construe- r ing and the ultimate saving of every 
tions. All the remains of Cnidus soul on board, is best answered by 
show that it must have been a city of j reference to the passage, " God hath 
great magnificence. I given thee all them that sail with thee* 



564 



PauTs First Imprisonment at .Rome. Chav. XVID. 



Havens was incommodious to winter in, and the majority ad- 
vised attempting to run for Phoenix, a harbor sheltered alike 
from the N.W. and S.W. winds, and described by modem 
sailors as the only secure harbor, in all winds, on the south 
coast of Crete. 32 

§ 7. It was about tne 18th of October when the mariners 
were tempted out of Fair Havens by a soft south wind, which 
would enable them to double C Matala (only 5 miles dis 
tant), and then to make a fair run of 35 miles to Port Phce 
nix. They had already weathered the cape, and were keep- 
ing close under the land, 33 when, without a moment's warn- 
ing, an E.N.E. wind came sweeping down the gullies of 
Mount Ida, " descending from the lofty hills in heavy squalls 
and eddies " with all the fury of a typhoon. The sailors, ac- 
customed to those seas, recognized their dreaded enemy by 
its well-known name Euroclydon. Unable to bear up into 
the wind, 34 they could only let the ship scud before the gale. 35 



(ver. 24). Their lives were really 
forfeit to the commander's rashness, 
but they were given back to the 
Apostle's prayers. 

32 Phoenix is called Phenice by our 
translators, who perhaps meant the I 
word to be pronounced Phenice, in | 
two syllables, as distinguished from 
Phenice (i. e., Phoenicia, Acts xi. 19). 
The name is doubtless derived from j 
the Greek word for the palm-tree, j 
which was indigenous in Crete. Tbe j 
positions assigned by Ptolemy and 
Pliny, the preservation of the name 
Phinika in the neighborhood, and the 
proximity of Clauda, concur with 
other evidence to identify the harbor 
with Lntro, where, contrary to the 
former opinion that there was no safe 
anchorage on the south coast of Crete, 
the survey of 1852 found excellent 
soundings, combined with a perfect 
shelter from the whole compass of the 
westerly winds. This fact concurs 
with the very purpose of the mariners, 
to prove that the words fiM-rrovra 
{looking, not lying as in the A.V. ) 
Kara Aifta ml Kara Xcjpov can not 
possibly mean exposed to the S.W. 
and N.W. winds. This description 
is not that of St. Luke himself, who 
never entered the harbor, but that of 
the sailors, who spoke from their own 



point of view; and the harbor, viewed 
from the sea toward the land which en- 
closes it, would look toward the S.W. 
and N.W. Or, as Mr. Smith sug- 
gests, Kara may mean down the direc- 
tion of the winds blowing from those 
quarters. (See the argument more 
fully stated by Dr. Howson, with the 
chart and soundings of Lutro, St. 
Paul, c. xxiii.) 

33 Acts xvii. 13. accov TzapeT^eyov- 
to ri/V lipy-Tjv, where the Vulgate has 
strangely (and quite wrongly) trans- 
formed the comparative adverb into 
a proper name, cum sustulissent de A*- 
son, legebant Cretan/. 

34 avroddal/ueiv, literally into the, 
ivind's eye. 

36 Acts xxvii. 14, 15. Mer' ov iro^b 
de efiaXe /car' abrf/g (sc. Kp?/r//c) 
ave/uoc Tv0uviK.bc, 6 naTiovfievoc 
E v p o k A v 6 o v (Vulg. Euroaquilo, 
i. e., north-easter, a Latin name 
which the Greek sailors not under- 
standing might easily convert the end- 
ing into nAvduv, a billow-, and some 
of the best MSS. have ^vpaKvkurv). 
That hot' avrfjc means " down from 
the land of Crete," and not " against 
it " (i. e., the ship, A.V. and Smith), 
is a grammatical necessity, and Ad- 
miral Penrose (as quoted in the text) 
saw this meaning even without refer 






A.D. GO. 



Ship Caught in a Typhoon. 



565 



In this course they were carried under the lee of a small 
island named Olauda, about 20 miles from the coast of 
Crete. 36 Under its shelter they got the boat on board, al- 
ways a difficult matter in a gale, 37 and especially when it was 
doubtless full of water. This could only be done at all by 
bringing the ship's head round to the wind, a fact of which 
the importance will presently appear. The next preparation 
is one of the most interesting points in the whole narrative ; 
" they used helps, undergirding the ship." The ancient ships 
were peculiarly liable to loosen their frame-work and start 
their planks, not only from the imperfections of their build, 
but from the strain upon the hull caused by the single mast 
with its large square-sail. Hence the frequent foundering at 
sea, of which we have other cases in the shipwreck of Jonah, 
and in that of Josephus on his way to Rome four years later, 
which forms a striking parallel to the voyage of St. Paul. 38 
As a precaution against this danger, ships were provided 
with cables or chains, which could be passed round the hull 
at right angles (not, as some have supposed, from stem to 
stern), as "helps "to its strength, the ends being secured on 
deck ; and this was the process described as " undergirding 



ence to the Greek. The whole ac- | 
count of the sudden burst and long I 
continuance of the typhoon is won- ' 
derfully confirmed by modern voy- 
agers. Captain Spratt, E.N., after 
leaving Fair Havens with a light 
southerly wind, fell in with "a strong 
northerly breeze, blowing direct from 
Mount Ida." Next, the wind is de- 
scribed as being like a typhoon or 
whirlwind (rvpuvinoe, A. V. " tempest- 
uous ") ; and the same authority 
speaks of such gales in the Levant as ! 
being generally "accompanied by 
terrific gusts and squalls from those ! 
high mountains." It is also observa- I 
ble that the change of wind is exact- J 
ly what might have been expected ; ! 
for Captain J. Srewart, R.N., ob- ! 
serves, in his remarks on the Archi- 
pelago, that " it is always safe to an- 
chor under the lee of an island with 
a northerly wind, as it dies away 
gradually, but it would be extremely 
dangerous ' with southerly winds, as \ 
they almost invariably shift to a vi- 
olent northerly wind " (Purdy's Sail- 
ing Directory, pt. ii. p. Gl). The long 



duration of the gale ("the fourteenth 
night," ver. 27), the overclouded 
state of the sky ("neither sun nor 
stars appearing," ver. 20), and even 
the heavy rain which concluded the 
storm (rbvverbv, xxviii. 2) could easi- 
ly be matched with parallel instances 
in modern times (Smith, Voyage and 
Shipwreck, pp. 97, 114 ; Conybeare 
and Howson, vol. ii. pp. 401, 412). 

36 The position of Clauda is nearly 
due west of C. Matala, and nearly 
due south of Phoenix. 

37 Acts xxvii. 1 6 : laxi'(jo,fj,ev Trepi- 
Kareic yeveodat ttjq GKafyrjc, ijv apav- 
tec, etc. These words seem to im- 
ply that the passengers helped. The 
sailors, in their confidence of a short 
and smooth run to Phoenix, had left 
the boat to tow astern. It is worth 
while observing that this large Alex- 
andrian corn-ship, with 276 souls on 
board, seems to have had only one 
boat. 

38 Virgil, himself a voyager, assigns 
this cause for the loss of the fleet of 
iEneas, " Laxis laterum compagibus 
omnes" (Mn. i. 122). 



oQ6 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIIL 



the ship." 39 Another motive for this precaution was' the risk 
that, in that narrow part of the Mediterranean, the ship 
should be driven across to the Libyan coast, and fall upon 
the quicksands of the Great Syrtis, 40 where the undergirding 
would delay her going to pieces. 

To keep the vessel from this dangerous course, and to 
make her more steady, they " lowered the gear, and so were 
driven." 41 This can not mean that the ship scudded before 
the wind ; for that course would have driven her right on the 
Syrtis, if she had not first been swamped by the sea breaking 
over her stern ; but that she lay to under a storm-sail with 
her starboard (or right) side to the wind, the very position 
in which she had been brought up to the wind to take the 



39 Acts xxvii. 17: fiorjd eiac 

expcovro, VTT O (, UVV VVT e Q TO TT/loZ- 

ov. The process is in the English 
navy called /rapping, and many in- 
stances could be given where it has 
been found necessary in modern ex- 
perience. Ptolemy's great ship car- 
ried twelve of these undergirders 
(vTro£6/uaTa) ; and they are mention- 
ed in the inscriptions giving an in- 
ventory of the Athenian navy. Va- 
rious allusions to the practice are to 
be found in the classical writers (e. g. 
Time. i. 29; Plat. Repub. x. 3, p. 
61 6 ; Hor. Od. i. 14. G). On the first 
of these passages Dr. Arnold observes 
that "the Russian ships taken in the 
Tagus in 1 808 were kept together in 
this manner, in consequence of their 
age and unsound condition." 

40 Acts xxvii. 17: tyoftobfiEvoi re ju?/ 
elr rip Svpriv EKTreaucu (A.V. quick- 
sands), the broad and deep bight on 
the North African coast between 
Carthage and Gyrene. The name is 
derived from Sert, an Arabic word 
for a desert. For two reasons this 
region was an object of peculiar dread 
to the ancient navigators of the Med- 
iterranean, partly because of the 
drifting sands and the heat along the 
shore itself, but chiefly because of the 
shallows and the uncertain currents 
of water in the bay. So notorious 
were these dangers, that they became 
a commonplace with the poets (see 
Hor. Od. i. 22, 5; Ov. Fast. iv. 499; 
Virg. u¥,n. i. Ill ; Tibull. iii. 4, 91 ; 



Lucan, Phars. ix. 431). It is most 
to our purpose here, however, to re- 
fer to Apollonius Rhodius, who was 
familiar with all the notions of the 
Alexandrian sailors. In the 9th 
book of his Argonautica, 1232-1237, 
he supplies illustrations of the passage 
before us, in more respects than one — 
in the sudden violence of the terrible 
north wind, in its long duration, and 
in the terror which the sailors felt of 
being driven into the Syrtis. There 
were properly two Syrtes — the eastern 
or larger, now called the Gulf of Si- 
dra, and the western or smaller, now 
the Gulf of Cabes. It is the former 
to which our attention is directed in 
this passage of the Acts. The best 
modern account of this part of the 
African coast is that which is given 
(in his Memoir on the Mediterranean, 
pp. 87-91, 186-190) by Admiral 
Smyth, who was himself the first to 
survey this bay thoroughly, and to 
divest it of many of its terrors. 

41 x a ^ a( ^ av ' £C T0 Gtcevoc ovruc e<l>€- 
povro. In ver. 30, the word x a ~ Aaaav - 
tov is used again for letting down 
the boat by loosening her tackle. The 
meaning here seems to be that the 
large square-sail was let down on 
deck, together with the heavy top- 
hamper of ropes and pulleys (cuevac) 
that held it up. The extra fair- 
weather sails, if such there were, 
would either have been taken in or 
carried away at the beginning of the 
hurricane. 



A.D. 60. Fortnight's Drift in Adria. 569 

boat on board." This manoeuvre would keep her head well 
off the African coast, and cause her to drift a little to the N. 
of W. at the rate of about a mile and a half an hour, or 36 
miles a day. The next day they began to lighten ship, by 
throwing overboard all that could be spared ; 43 and on the 
day after, the passengers helped to cast out the spare gear 
that had already been sent down on deck. 44 

§ 8. All was now done that the best seamanship of that 
age could suggest, and there followed the far more trying in- 
terval of suspense for several days, the tempest continuing at 
its height, and neither sun nor stars appearing to give them an 
idea of their position. 45 All hope of safety was now abandon- 
ed. 46 " ISTo one," says Dr. Howson, " who has never been in 
a leaking ship in a continued gale can know what is suffered 
under such circumstances. The strain both of mind and body 
— the incessant demand for the labor of all the crew — the 
terror of the passengers — the hopeless working at the pumps 
— the laboring of the ship's frame and cordage — the driving 
of the storm — the benumbing effect of the cold and wet — 
make up a scene of no ordinary confusion, anxiety, and 
fatigue. ... To this despair was added a further suffering 
from want of food, in consequence of the injury done to the 
provisions, and the impossibility of preparing any regular 
meal. Hence Ave see the force of the phrase which alludes to 
what a casual reader might suppose an unimportant part of 
the suffering, that there was much abstinence" 

But under that dark sky, and in that hopelessly drifting 
ship, there appeared the light of joy and life ; for it held no 
Jonah, fleeing from duty,. but a Paul bound in spirit to testify 



42 We must refer to Mr. Smith's 
work (pp. 64, 65) for the technical 
details in proof that the ship lay to 
on the starboard tack. As to the 
position of the ship's head, it is cal- 
culated that an ancient merchantman 
could commonly sail in fair weather 
within 7 points (7Sf °) of the wind, 
and she could probably lie to at the 
same angle. If, then, the wind was 
E.N.E., or 6 points E. of N., her 
head would now be 1 point W. of N., 
or N. by W. (but with that " coming 
up and falling off" which causes a 
ship lying to to oscillate over an arc 
of from 5 to 9 points). Adding 6 
points for "leeway," the ship in this 
position would drift W. by N.. in a 
direct course for Malta. 



43 Actsxxvii. 18 ; tK,3o/.7/v eiroiovvro 
(the Imperfect). The valuable cargo 
of wheat was not thrown out till the 
last emergency (ver. 38). Compare 
Jonah i. 5. 

44 Ver. 19, where the word avroxei- 
psg and the change from the third 
person to the first indicate the part 
taken in the work by Luke, and no 
doubt by Paul himself. Mr. Smith 
supposes the gkevtjv here to be the 
mainyard, "an immense spar, prob- 
ably as long as the ship, which would 
require the united efforts of pas- 
sengers and crew to launch over- 
board." 

45 This overcast sky is frequent dur- 
ing a "Levanter." 

:6 Acts xxvii. 20. 



570 PauVs First Imprisonment at Borne. Chap. XVIII 

for God also at Rome. As in so many a former crisis of his 
life, a vision was vouchsafed to him in the night ; and, when 
another day broke, as dark and hopeless as those before, he 
announced the good news to the sailors and passengers 
gathered round him on the deck. After gently reminding 
them of the claim which his former rejected advice gave him 
to their belief, he went on in the kindly words : — " And now I 
exhort you to be of good cheer : for there shall be no loss of 
any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood 
by me this night the Angel of God, tohose J am and whom 
I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before 
Caesar : and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with 
thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God, 
that it shall be even as it was told me. Howbeit, we must be 
cast upon a certain island." 47 The same power that gave 
this assurance could have caused the ship to arrive safe in 
port with her cargo as well as her crew ; but it is the law of 
God's providential discipline that the deliverances he grants 
from the consequences of our errors should be at the expense 
of that degree of suffering but for which they would pass un- 
valued, and that those who have received such deliverances 
should remain 

"Thankful for all God takes away, 
Humbled by all he gives." 

§ 9. The storm still raged with unabated fury, and the ship 
was drifting in the sea of Adria,* 8 when, on the fourteenth 
night after their departure from Clauda, some of those indi- 
cations which a sailor's ear detects so quickly — doubtless, as 

47 Acts xxvii. 21-26. I Crete is bounded on the west by Adri- 

4S More properly Adrius (6 'Adpiac'). las. Later writers state that Malta 

The word seems to have been derived j divides the Adriatic sea from the 



from the town of Adria, near the Po ; 
and at first it denoted that part of 
the Gulf of Venice which is in that 
neighborhood. Afterward the sig- 
nification of the name was extended, 
so as to embrace the whole of that 
gulf. Subsequently it obtained a 
much wider extension, and in the 
apostolic age denoted that natural 
division of the Mediterranean which 
Humboldt names the Svrtic basin 



Tyrrhenian sea, and the isthmus of 
Corinth the iEgean from the Adriat- 
ic. Thus the ship in which Josephus 
started for Italy, about the time of 
St. Paul's voyage, foundered in Adri- 
as (Life, 3), and there he was pick- 
ed up by a ship from Cyrene and 
taken to Puteoli (see Actsxxviii. 13). 
It is through ignorance of these facts, 
or through the want of attending to 
them, that writers have drawn an 



(see Acts xxvii. 17), and which had j argument from this geographical term 
the coasts of Sicily, Italy, Greece, and | in favor of the false view which places 
Africa for its boundaries. This defini- the Apostle's shipwreck in the Gulf 
tion is explicitly given by almost a I of Venice. (Smith's Voyage and Shiju 
contemporary of St. Paul, the geog- | wreck of St. Paul. Diss, on the Island 
rapher Ptolemy, who also savs that i MeJita.) 



A.D. 60. 



PauVs Last Encouragements. 



571 



we shall soon see, the roar of breakers — gave a warning of 
land near, which the soundings confirmed. Fearing to be 
driven on the rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, 
and " longed for day-break." 49 For in such a storm, to anchor 
off a lee shore is a forlorn hope ; and the sailors conspired to 
desert the ship by letting down the boat, on the pretense of 
casting more anchors out of the prow. Paul once more in- 
terposed with words which furnish a marked illustration of 
the working of human effort with divine decrees. These 
sailors were still wanted for the last act of seamanship in the 
morning; and the same voice that had promised, in God's 
name, that not a life should be lost, now said to Julius, " Except 
these abide in the ship ye can not be saved." The soldiers 
cut the ropes by which the sailors were already lowering the 
boat, and the last visible means of safety was swept away into 
the darkness. 50 

All were now shut up to the unknown escape which the 
Apostle had promised ; and this last act of decision seems to 
have given him that ascendency over the crew which he had 
already secured over the soldiers and all the rest. As the day 
began to break, he gathered around him his fellow-voyagers 
(276 souls in all), and besought them to eat after their four- 
teen days' fast, as it was needful for their salvation 51 to be 
strengthened for the last exertions ; and once more he assured 



49 Acts xxvii. 27-29 : t/v^ovto rjfik- 
pav jeveadai. The ancient anchors, 
as we see on coins, were similar in 
form to our own (except that the 
flukes were not barbed), and the ca- 
bles passed in a similar . manner 
through hawse-holes (the pair in the 
prow being called eyes). Ships of 
any size had several : here we have 
four, and elsewhere eight (Ath. v. 43). 
The most powerful anchor, the "last 
hope," was called the sacred (ispa, 
sacra), and persons trying their last 
hope were said sacram solvere (whence 
the impressive figure in Hebrews vi. 
19). The ship anchored by the stern 
(a course common with the ancients, 
and for which they would therefore 
be prepared), not only as the best 
means of checking her course and 
preventing her swinging round on to 
the rocks, but to be in readiness to 
run ashore as soon as day-light en- 
abled them to choose a proper spot. 
As to the holding-ground afforded 



by St. Pauls Bay in Malta, we are 
told that, "while the cables hold, 
there is no danger, as the anchors 
will never start " (Purdy's Sailing Di- 
rections, p. 180). Nelson anchored 
his fleet by the stern both at the Nile 
and Copenhagen ; and, after the lat- 
ter battle, he stated that he had been 
that morning reading the 21th chapter 
of the Acts of the Apostles (Conybeare 
and Howson, vol. ii. p. 414). 

50 Acts xxvii. °,0-32. 

51 Acts xxvii. 33-34. tovto yap Ttpbc 
T7jc vfierepac ournpiac virapxei. (Our 
translators have been, as so often, 
misled by the Vulgate, pro salute ves- 
tra, taking salus as health, instead of 
salvation). The phrase, Tecaapegnac- 
deKCLTTjv arjfiepov 7]/j,epav irpocdoKCdVTec 
aavroL dtareAeire must of course be 
understood in the sense that they had 
no regular meal, probably munch-. 
ing grains of the wheat or other dam- 
aged provision, as they could get 
them. 



572 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. -Chai\ XVIII. 



them, " there shall not an hair fall from the head of any one 
of you." " When he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave 
thanks to God in presence of them all; and when he had 
broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, 
and they also took some food." 52 Surely the Evangelist's use 
of language so similar to the Gospel record of the Lord's Sup- 
per indicates more than a " grace before meat," and goes far 
to justify our putting the highest sense upon the words— 
" God hath given thee — as a gift of grace 53 — all those that 
sail with thee." Dr. Howson observes of Paul's former ad- 
dress : — " Sailors, however reckless they may be in the absence 
of danger, are peculiarly open to religious impressions : and 
we can not doubt that they gathered anxiously round the 
Apostle, and heard his words as an admonition and encour- 
agement from the other world, that they were nerved for the 
toil and difficulty which was immediately before them, and 
prepared thenceforward to listen to the Jewish prisoner as to 
a teacher sent with a divine commission ;" and so we venture 
to regard that breaking of bread as an eucharistic feast, in 
which — as Ave infer from the numbers being mentioned just 
here — none on board failed to share. 54 

They ate with a good appetite, 65 and thus refreshed in body, 
mind, and soul, they used the first dawn to lighten the ship 
by casting out the cargo of wheat into the sea, " to enable 
them by a lighter draft of water either to run into any small 
harbor, or at least closer in with dry land, should they be 
obliged to run the ship on the rocks or beach." 56 This took 
some time ; and now that it was broad day-light, the sailors 
could examine the shore. At first they did not recognize it 
as known land ; 57 but they saw what apj^eared to be a creek or 
bay, with a smooth beach, 58 into which they decided, if possi- 
ble, to run the ship. 



52 Aets xxvii. 35, 36. 

63 Acts xxvii. 24, Kexaptorai col. 

54 Acts xxvii. 37. 

55 Acts xxvii. 38: nopecOevr e c 
(being satisfied) r?jg rpoyf/g. 

56 Penrose MS., quoted by Howson, 
vol. ii. p. 419. Another motive was 
to get rid of a part of the burden 
which, from the ship having been so 
long on the starboard tack, had shift- 
ed to the port side, in order to bring 
her upright, and enable her to be 
more accurately steered toward the 
land at day-break. (Smith and Pen- 
rose, ibid.). Some take rdv alrov\ 



to mean the remnant of their provis- 
ions, the cargo having either been al- 
ready thrown out (ver. 18), or being 
too much to be dealt with now ; but 
surely this would not materially 
" lighten the ship " (kno'vtyL^ov to ttaol- 
ov, ver. 38). Kopeadhret, t?~/(, rpo~ 
(pfjq seems to be the antecedent, not 
to what they did with the food now 
superfluous, but to the effort needed 
to cast out the cargo. 

57 Acts xxvii. 39 : rrjv yfjv ovk efre- 
yivuGKOv (Impei'fect) ; contrasted with 
the ETTEyvufiev below (Acts xxviii. 1). 

58 KSattov Tiva ex° VTa alyiaAov. 



A.D. 60. 



St. PauVs Bay, in Malta. 



573 




§ 10. What followed is explained by looking at the spot, 
thus far unknown to them, but now identified beyond any rea- 
sonable doubt. The perverse ingenuity which, misled first by 
the word Adria (ver. 27), proceeded to discover a Melita 
high ur» the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, raised a contro- 



574 



Paul's First Imprisonment at Borne. Chap. XVIII 



versy which has been completely settled. The island was 
unquestionably Malta; and it is almost equally certain that 
the scene of the shipwreck was that to which local tradition 
has given the name of St. PauPs Bay, on the N~.E. coast of 
the island. The direction of the ship's head when she lay to 
off Clauda, and her estimated rate of drift, were just such as 
to carry her to Malta in the fourteen days, and she could 
make St. Paul's Bay without first touching any other part of 
the island, which from this point trends to the S.E. A glance 
at the chart is of itself enough to show how her course was 
guided by that special providence which so plainly announced 
itself to Paul. 59 The ship was borne in the darkness so near 
to Koura Point, the S.E. headland of the bay, that the break- 
ers striking its rocks gave the warning to anchor just in time 
to avoid striking on the opposite shore; and the soundings 
are precisely those mentioned in the narrative.™ She anchored 
off the E. point of the islet of Salmo?ietta, which would ap- 
pear from that point of view to join the mainland, with its 
beach of sand or mud. 

The preparations to run in the ship sustain the character of 
the Alexandrian mariners for seamanship. " While cutting 
the anchors adrift, they unloosed the lashings with which the 
rudder had been secured, that they might steer freely, and 
hoisted the foresail, both to steady the vessel's course and to 
press her further on upon the land. These three things were 
done simultaneously (afxa), and there were a sufficient number 
of hands on board." 61 Thus they drove right ashore, stem on, 



59 In this case, at least, those who 
would merge a particular in a general 
providence have no choice but to re- 
ject the truth of St. Paul's vision. 
But, in truth, history, philosophy, 
and consciousness unite to teach that 
the former doctrine is the necessary 
complement of the latter ; and he best 
vindicates the permanence and uni- 
versality of God's laws who vindi- 
cates their administration, in individ- 
ual cases, by God's wisdom and love. 

60 Namely, about 20 fathoms off the 
point, and 15 further on (Acts xxvii. 
28). The anchor in the chart indi- 
cates about the place where the ship 
was brought up. 

61 Acts xxvii. 40. Dr. Howson. 
The following points in the narra- 
tive require elucidation: — (1.) They 
" loosed the rudder -bands ' (avevrec 



rac C,evKTnpiac ruv TTTjdaliuv). The 
ships of the ancients were not steer- 
ed, like ours, by a single rudder 
hinged on at the stern, but by a 
pair of broad-bladed oars or paddles, 
each acting in a rowlock or through 
a port-hole, according as the ship 
was small or large. This fact is 
made familiar to us by coins and 
sculptures ; those, for example, on 
Trajan's column. Nor was this the 
case only with the ancient ships that 
navigated the Mediterranean, but 
with the early ships of the North- 
men, as may be seen in the Bayeux 
tapestry. Traces of the two rudders 
are found in the time of Louis IX.; 
and the hinged rudder first appears 
on the coins of King Edward IV. 
Hence the steering apparatus of the 
ancient ships was named in the plural. 



A.D. 60. 



Shipwreck of St. Paul. 



575 



and the bow stuck fast on the muddy beach. But then it 
proved that the spot they had mistaken for the bottom of a 
creek was at the mouth of the little strait separating the islet 
of Salmonetta from the mainland, "a place where two seas 
met." 62 The swell of the open sea, rolling in from the north 
through this channel, dashed the hinder-part of the ship to 
pieces ; but the fore-part, fixed " upright and immovable," G3 
afforded a refuge to the voyagers while preparing to escape 
to shore. A new danger now arose from the savage temper 
of the Roman soldiers, who would have killed the prisoners, 
lest any of them should swim ashore and escape. 64 Even the 
centurion would probably have seen nothing strange in such 
an act ; but, for the sake of saving Paul, he prevented its exe- 
cution ; and, assuming the command with that military disci- 
pline which we have so often seen triumphant over the con- 
fusion of a shipwreck, Julius ordered that those who could 
swim should first plunge into the sea and get to land ; while 
the rest followed as best they could, some on spars, and some 
on pieces of the wreck : " and so it came to pass that they all 
escaped safe to land." ca 

TTT/on/.ta, gubernacula. There is noth- 
ing inconsistent with this in James 
iii. 4, where 7zrjcd7,iov (helm) occurs 
in the singular, for the Apostle is 
speaking of the smallness of the in- 
strument (a paddle-rudder) with which 
the steersman (6 evdvvuv) governs the 
ship — generally, by the bye, moving 
each separately. In the case before 
us, when four anchors were let go at 
the stern, it would of course be neces- 
sary to lash or trice up both paddles, 
lest they should interfere with the 
ground-tackle. When the ship had 
to be steered again, and the cables 
were cut, the lashings of the paddles 
would of course be unfastened. (2.) 
They "hoisted up the mainsail to the 
wind " (koa £~dpavreg rbv dpri/xova) — 
a manoeuvre which would astound a 
sailor, especially as there can be little 
doubt that the mainyard and its rig- 
ging had been thrown overboard. In 
fact the dpre/Liuv was the foresail, car- 
ried on a small foremast, which may 
be seen raking over the bow in rep- 
resentations of ships on Roman 
coins. Such a sail would be almost 



necessary in putting a large ship 
about. On this occasion it was used 



in running her aground. Dr. How- 
son most appositely quotes the fol- 

I lowing from a letter in the Times, 

Dec. 5, 1855: "H.M.S. , off the 

Katcha, Nov. 15. — The Lord Raglan 
(merchant-ship) is on shore, but taken 
there in a most sailor-like manner 

i Directly her captain found he could not 
save her, he cut away his mainmast 
and mizen, and, setting a top-sail on 

j her foremast, ran her ashore stem on." 

62 Acts xxvii. 41. UepiTreaovreg 6e 
'■ tve t6~ov 6i6a/.aGGov: the very word 
; that Strabo applies to the Bosporus. 

"Though we are not to suppose that 
j by two seas two moving bodies of wa- 
ter or two opposite currents are 
; meant, yet it is very possible thav 
! there might be a current between 
Salmonetta and the coast, and this 
I affected the steering of the vessel " 
'■ (Howson). 

63 kpeiaaaa dad/.svrog. Mr. Smith, 
j whose investigations extended to the 

geology of Malta, describes the bot- 
tom at this spot as of mud, graduat- 
ing into tenacious clay. 

64 Acts xxvii. 42, u-fjrig skko/.vu* 
firjoac literally, diving out) ouztyvyn. 

fi5 Acts xxvii. 44. 



576 



Paul's First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIII 



As to Paul himself, it was not the first time that he had had 
such an escape from even greater dangers. Long before this 
time he tells the Corinthians of his three shipwrecks, in one 
of which he had passed " a night and a day on the deep," 
floating about probably on a spar, like Josephus when ship- 
wrecked in this very Adrian Sea. 66 Nor will it be out of 
place here to observe how, with this experience, and minister- 
ing so constantly among sea-faring Greeks, he makes a most 
impressive though unfrequent use of nautical images. The 
fate of those apostates who, swerving from the direct course of 
good conscience and faith unfeigned, which guides to perfect 
love, have " made shipwreck concerning faith," 67 may be con- 
trasted with the Apostle's repeated avowal uttered in the 
port of Miletus, as he was hastening on his voyage to Jerusa- 
lem, that he had never " furled his sails in the onward course 
of declaring all the counsel of God :" 68 and Ave may well sup- 
pose that the remembrance of the night when his ship rode 
out the storm in the Maltese bay, with her straining cables 
passed out into the darkness, suggested the image of the 
Christian's sole but certain hope, "which we have as an 
anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth 
into that which is within the veil. 69 

§ 11. And now, like the shipwrecked mariners, we are once 
more on firm land, after this intricate but most interesting 
voyage. They had not recognized the land at first, but — says 
St. Luke — " When we had escaped, then we discovered that 
the island was called Melita." 70 Malta was at this time a 
dependency of the province of Sicily, governed by an officer 
who is mentioned on inscriptions by the very title given 
to him by St. Luke, of Primus. 11 From its position in the 



66 2 Cor. xi. 25. 

67 2 Tim. i. 5, 6, 19. 

68 Acts xx. 20 and 27 : ovdev vtzec- 
ret?ia/Mjv. The dpofioc of ver. 24 also 
may refer to a voyage as well as to a 
race-course. 

69 Heb. vi. 19. This and Acts 
xxvii. are the only passages of the 
N. T. in which the word anchor oc- 
curs. 

70 Acts xxviii. 1 . 

71 TLpuToc Me/icrdcuv (Acts xxviii. 
7). Mr. Smith could not find these 
inscriptions. There seems, however, 
no reason whatever to doubt their 
authenticity (see Bocharr, Opera, i. 
502; Abela, Descr. Melitae, p. 146, 



appended to the last volume of the 
Antiquities of Graevius ; and Boeckh, 
Corp. Insc. vol. iii. 5754). Through 
subsequent periods of its history, 
Vandal and Arabian, Malta was often 
associated with piracy. The Chris- 
tianity, however, introduced by St. 
Paul was never extinct. This island 
had a brilliant period under the 
knights of St. John ; and it is asso- 
ciated with the most exciting pas- 
sages of the struggle between the 
French and English at the close of 
the last century and the beginning 
of the present. No island so small 
has so great a history, whether Bib- 
lical or political. 



A.D. 61. 



Reception and Miracles at Malta. 



577 



Mediterranean, and the excellence of its harbors, Melita has 
always been important both in commerce and war. It was a 
settlement of the Phoenicians at an early period, and their 
language, in a corrupted form, continued to be spoken there 
in St. Paul's day. 72 From the Carthaginians it passed to the 
Romans in the Second Punic War. It was famous for its 
honey and fruits, for its cotton fabrics, for excellent building-^ 
stone, and for a well-known breed of dogs. A few years be- 
fore St. Paul's visit, corsairs from his native province of 
Cilicia made Merita a frequent resort. This one fact is 
enough to prove that the island was then thinly peopled, and 
consequently it may have been well-wooded. The extraordi- 
nary increase of its population in modern times accounts for 
the disappearance of many indigenous animals that once har- 
bored in its forests, and disposes of the objection that no 
venomous snakes are now found in the island. 

The inhabitants received the shipwrecked mariners with 
kindness, and kindled a fire, which was most needful in the 
cold and rain." Paul was helping to gather sticks, and had 
just laid a bundle on the fire, when a viper, driven out by the 
heat, fastened on his hand. 74 Possessed with a superstition, 
not extinct in our day, about the safety from one death of 
those who deserve another, and knowing Paul to be a pris- 
oner, the natives said among themselves, " At all events this 
man is a murderer, whom, saved from the sea, justice suffcr- 
eth not to live." But when, after Paul had quietly shaken off 
the reptile into the fire, they watched a long time in vain to 
see him swell or fall down dead, they changed their minds and 
said that he was a god, — a conclusion the more natural from 
the belief of a people of Eastern origin in serpent-worship and 
serpent-charming. 75 The incident not only gave Paul that as- 
cendency over the people which we well know how he would 
use, but it w r ould naturally attract the attention of Publius, 
the primate of the island, whose estates were in the neighbor- 
hood. He received the Apostle's party with courteous hospi- 



72 Gesenius, Versuch iib. malt. 
Sprache, Leipz. 1810. Hence the 
people are called /3apfiapoi (Acts 
xxviii. 2), which simply means that 
they did not speak Greek, and is un- 
fortunately translated barbarous peo- 
ple in the A.V. 

73 Acts xxviii. 2. Mr. Lewin cal- 
culates that the date was about the 
1st of Nov. 

74 Acts xxviii. 3. This e^iSva was 

z 



probably the common viper (Pelias 
berus), which is widely distributed 
throughout Europe and the islands 
of the Mediterranean, or else the 
Vipera aspis, a not uncommon species 
on the coasts of the same sea. 

75 Acts xxvii. 3-6. St. Luke doubt- 
less gave his readers credit for infer- 
ring, from Paul's conduct at Lystra, 
how he would act now" in rejecting 
divine honors. 



578 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Home. Chap. XVIII. 



tality ; 76 and was rewarded by the cure of his father, Avho 
lay ill of fever and dysentery, through the prayer of PauJ 
with the laying on of his hands. The fame of the miracle 
spread through the island, and others who had diseases came 
and were healed. We can not doubt that these miracles 
were followed by the preaching and belief of the Gospel, 
through the winter months, during which Paul and his com- 
panions were detained in Malta by the suspension of naviga- 
tion. His success is attested by the honors paid to him in 
the island, and the supplies with which he was loaded on his 
departure. 77 

§ 12. After a detention of three months, Julius placed his 
prisoners on board another Alexandrian ship, the " Castor and 
Pollux," which had wintered in the island. 78 About the be- 
ginning of February (a.d. 61) 79 they sailed first to Syracuse, 
where they remained three days ; and thence they beat up 6U 
to Rhegium on the Italian side of the straits of Messina. 
After a day's waiting for the weather, a fair south wind 
sprang up, and carried them on the following day to their 
destination at Puteoli, one of the chief ports for the corn- 
trade, and therefore for the landing of passengers. 81 As 



76 Acts xxviii. 7. By the rpelc 
q/ii-pac of this passage we may proba- 
bly understand that after the Apostle 
had stayed with Publius three days, 
the miracle of healing caused the 
people to begin to resort to him, and 
he entered on a course of evangelic 
labor throughout the island. 

77 Acts xxviii. 10. 

78 Acts xxviii. 11. The ancients 
placed their ships under the protection 
of tutelar deities, whose images were 
either placed as a figure-head, which 
was the usage of the Phoenicians, or 
(as Cyril tells us was the constant 
custom of the Alexandrians) sculpt- 
ured or painted on each side of the 
prow (Lucian, Navig. c. 5 ; Hor. Carm. 
i. 14, 10, 14, "Non di, quos iterum 
pressa voces malo. . . . Nil pictis tim- 
idus navita puppibus fidit"). The 
Dioscuri were especially the tutelar 
deities of mariners, to whom they ap- 
peared in heaven in the constellation 
Gemini (fratres Helen se,, lucida side- 
ra), and played about ships in those 
electric lights which modern sailors 
call the Fire of St. Elmo (Hor. Carm. 



i. 3, 2, iv. 8, 31). Hence this ship 
of Alexandria had them for its "sign" 
(jrapao7}fj,ov~). 

79 Mr. Lewin assigns Feb. 8th, that 
being the date when navigation was 
resumed. 

80 This is Mr. Smith's explanation 
of irepieWovrec, Acts xxviii. 13. 

81 Puteoli (Uorioloi) appears thus 
also in Joseph us (Vit. 3; Ant. xvii. 
12, § 1, xviii. 7, § 2). It was at that 
period a place of very great impor- 
tance : the celebrated bay which is 
now "the Bay of Naples," and in 
early times was "the Bay of Cumse," 
was then called " Sinus Puteolanus." 
The city was at the north-eastern an- 
gle of the bay. Close to it was Baiae, 
one of the most fashionable of the 
Roman watering-places. The em- 
peror Caligula once built a ridiculous 
bridge between the two towns ; ant 
the remains of it must have been con- 
spicuous when St. Paul landed a. 
Puteoli. In illustration of the arri- 
val here of the corn-ships we may re- 
fer to Seneca (Ep. 77) and Suetonius 
COctav. 98). The earlier name of 




.61. 



St. Paul at Puteoli. 



579 



might have been expected at a port in such constant commu- 
nication with the East, they found here Christian brethren, 
at whose desire Paul spent a week with them, the centurion 
being evidently eager to show him unbounded courtesy — ■ 
" And so went on to Rome." 82 

These words imply that they followed the usual route 
trodden by so many travelers — 

"Praetors, Proconsuls, to their provinces 
Hasting, or on return, in robes of state ; 
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power, 
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings ; 
Or embassies from regions far remote, 
In various habits, on the Appian Road." 83 

How many of these travelers must have looked down upon 
the Apostle and his escort with the same feelings with which 
we regard the weary, dismal march of a chained gang of con- 



Puteoli, when the lower part of Italy- 
was Greek, was Dicaearchia. Jose- 
phus speaks of himself (after the 
shipwreck which, like St. Paul, he 
had recently gone through) as dcaao- 
detc elg rrjv Ainaiapx'iav rjv HotloTiovq 
'IraXol ndXovoiv. The word Puteoli 
was a true Roman name, and arose 
(whether a puteis or a putendo) from 
the strong mineral springs which are 
characteristic of the place. Its Ro- 
man history may be said to have be- 
gun with the Second Punic War. It 
rose continually into greater impor- 
tance, from the causes above mention- 
ed. No part of the Campanian shore 
was more frequented. The associa- 
tions of Puteoli with historical person- 
ages are very numerous. Scipio sail- 
ed from hence to Spain. Cicero had 
a villa (his "Puteolanum ") in the 
neighborhood. Here Nero planned 
the murder of his mother. Vespasian 
gave to this city peculiar privileges ; 
and here Hadrian was buried. In 
the 5th century Puteoli was ravaged 
both by Alaric and Genseric, and it 
never afterward recovered its former 
eminence. It is now a fourth-rate 
Italian town, still retaining the name 
of Pozzuoli. In connection with St. 
Paul's movements, we must notice its 
communications in Nero's reign along 
the mainland with Rome. The coast- 



road leading northward to Sinuessa 
was not made till the reign of Domi- 
tian ; but there was a cross-road 
leading to Capua, and there joining 
the Appian Way. The remains of 
this road may be traced at intervals; 
and thus the Apostle's route can be 
followed almost step by step. We 
should also notice the fact that there 
were Jewish residents at Puteoli. 
We might be sure of this from its 
mercantile importance ; but we are 
positively informed of it by Josephus 
{Ant. xvii. 12, § 1) in his account of 
the visit of the pretended Herod- Al- 
exander to Augustus ; and the cir- 
cumstance shows how natural it was 
that the Apostle should find Christian 
"brethren" there immediately on 
landing. The remains of Puteoli are 
considerable. But our chief interest 
here is concentrated on the ruins of 
the ancient mole, which is formed of 
the concrete called Pozzolana, and six- 
teen of the piers of which still remain. 
No Roman harbor has left so solid a 
memorial of itself as this one at which 
St. Paul landed in Italy. 

82 Acts xxviii. 14. 

83 Milton's Paradise Regained, bk. 
iv. vv. 63-68. Horace has left us a 
vivid account of his journey along 
this great thoroughfare (Sat- i. 5\ 
See note 81. 



580 



Paul's First Imprisonment at Home. Chap. XVIII. 



victs; little dreaming that he came a truer conqueror than 
any general who had led his legions along that road to enter 
Rome in triumph. He had another greeting before his jour- 
ney's end: " The Italian Christians had long been looking 
for a visit from the famous Apostle, though they had not ex- 
pected to see him arrive thus, a prisoner in chains, hardly 
saved from shipwreck" (Howson). The stay at Puteoli had 
given time for the news of his arrival to be sent to Rome ; 
and the Christians of that city sent to meet him as far as the 
stations of Appii Forum and the Three Taverns.^ This 
double welcome was the earnest that Paul's long desire, both 
to preach the Gospel at Rome and to have fellowship with 
the Church already founded there," 5 was now to be fulfilled ; 
and, when he saw them, he thanked God, and took courage. 

§ 13. It must be remembered that this whole journey was 
made in custody of the centurion, who, on reaching Rome, 
delivered up his prisoners to the prefect of the Praetorian 
Guard, 80 who was at this time the celebrated Burrus. The 



84 Appii Forum ('Arnriov <popov) was 
a very well known station (as we learn 
from Hor. Sat. i. 5. and Cic. ad Att. 
ii. 10) on the Appian Way, the great 
road which led from Rome to the 
neighborhood of the Bay of Naples. 
The position of this place is fixed by 
the ancient Itineraries at 43 miles 
from Rome (It in. Ant. p. 107 ; Itin. 
Hier. p. 611). The Jerusalem Itin- 
erary calls it a vmtatio. Horace de- 
scribes it as full of taverns and boat- 
men. This arose from the circum- 
stance that it was at the northern end 
of a canal which ran parallel with 
the road, through a considerable part 
of the Pomptine Marshes. There is 
no difficulty in identifying the site 
with some ruins near Treponti ; and 
in fact the 43d mile-stone is preserved 
there. The name is probably due to 
Appius Claudius, who first construct- 
ed this part of the ^oad. 

Three Taverx j (Tpeic Tafiepva't : 
Tres Tabemai) was the next station 
on the Appian Road. The distances, 
reckoning southward from Rome, 
are given as follows in the Antonine 
Itinerary : — "To Aricia 16 miles; to 
Three Taverns, 17 miles; to Appii 
Forum, 10 miles;" and, comparing 
this with what is observed still along 



the line of road, we have no difficul- 
ty in coming to the conclusion that 
' ; Three Taverns" was near the mod- 
ern Cisterna. Just at this point a 
road came in from Antium on the 
coast. This we learn from what 
Cicero says of a journey from that 
place to his villa at Formise (Att. ii. 
12). There is no doubt that " Three 
Taverns " was a frequent meeting- 
place of travelers. Paul met here a 
second group of Christians. A good 
illustration of this kind of intercourse 
along the Appian Way is supplied by 
Josephus (Ant. xvii. 12, § 1) in his 
account of the journey of the pretend- 
er Herod- Alexander. He landed at 
Puteoli (Dicaearchin) to gain over 
the Jews that were there ; and " when 
the report went about him that he 
was coming to Rome, the whole mul- 
titude of the Jews that were there 
went out to meet him, ascribing it to 
Divine Providence that he had so un- 
expectedly escaped." 

e5 Rom. i. 15. 

86 Acts xxviii. 16 : ru arparoiTeddp- 
XV- The use of the singular here, 
viewed in connection with St. Luke's 
habitual accuracy, furnishes Mr. Lew- 
in with a confirmatory proof of the 
time of St. Paul's arrival at Rome. 



A.D. 61. 



St. Paul Arrives at Home. 



581 



report of Julius, and in some degree probably the interest 
already excited about Christianity at the imperial court, pro- 
cured special favor for St. Paul. Though still, like state 
prisoners even of the highest rank (as in the case of Agrippa 
under Tiberius), having one arm bound to the soldier who 
kept him night and day, with that chain to which he makes 
touching allusions, 87 he was suffered to dwell by himself in his 
own hired house, of course within the precincts of the Prceto- 
rium™ and what he valued far more — to receive visitors and 
discourse freely with them of the Gospel. 

Beginning here also with his own nation, the Apostle, three 
days after his arrival, invited the chief men among the Jews 
to come to him, and, addressing them as brethren, he freely 
explained to them his present position. Though innocent of 
any crime against the Jewish law or customs, he had been 
given at Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, and when 
they were ready to acquit him, the opposition of the Jews 
had constrained him to appeal to Caesar. He was now at 



We have seen that the date of his 
hearing before Festus may be placed, 
by independent evidence, in a.d. 60. 
The course of his journey brings him 
to Rome in March, which must have 
been not later than a.d. 62 ; for he 
preached without molestation for two 
full years, and the great persecution 
of the Christians broke out in the 
latter part of a.d. 64. But further, 
Burrus died in Jan. a.d. 62, and aft- 
er his death there were two Praetorian 
Prefects, and their custody of state 
prisoners is spoken of in Plin. Epist. 
x. G6 (Vinctus mitti ad Prcefectos 
Prsetorii mei debet). This then 
agrees with the former date, to fix 
St. Paul's arrival at Rome to March, 
a.d. 61. 

S7 Acts xxviii. 20 ; Eph. iii. 1, iv. 
1, vi. 20; Philem. 10, 13; and so in 
his second imprisonment (2 Tim. i. 
16, ii. 9). This was called the cus- 
tody a militaris. 

m Acts xxviii. 30. This explains 
Phil. i. 13: "My bonds in Christ are 
manifest in the whole Prcetorium (not 
palace, as in A.V.), and in all other 
places," or as some interpret, "to all 
the rest." The Praetorian camp at 
Rome, to which St. Paul refers here, 
was erected by the Emperor Tiberius, 



acting under the advice of Sejanus. 
Before that time the guards were bil- 
leted in different parts of the city. 
It stood outside the walls, at some 
distance short of the 4th mile-stone, 
and so near either to the Salarian or 
the Nomentane road, that Nero, in 
his flight by one or the other of them 
to the house of his freedman Phaon, 
which was situated between the two, 
heard the cheers of the soldiers with- 
in for Galba. In the time of Vespa- 
sian the houses seem to have extended 
so far as to reach it (Tacitus, Annal. 
iv. 2 ; Suetonius, Tib. 37, Neron. 48 ; 
Plin. H. N. iii. 5). Erom the first, 
buildings must have sprung up near 
it for sutlers and others. It was 
embraced within the circuit of the 
walls of Aurelius and Honorius ; on 
which its square outline may still 
be traced, like a projecting bastion. 
There is, however, another opinion 
maintained by Weiseler, that by the 
Prcetorium, where St. Paul was im- 
prisoned, we are to understand the 
quarters of that section of the Prae- 
torians which formed the immedi- 
ate body-guard of the emperor, and 
was posted in, or contiguous to, 
the palace of the Caesars on the Pala- 
tine. 



582 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIII, 



Rome, not to accuse his nation, but a prisoner, " bound with 
this chain," to answer for his faith in " the hope of Israel." 
Therefore had he invited them to this conference. The Jews 
replied, that they had received no letters from Judaea about 
him, nor had any of the brethren coming thence spoken any 
harm of him. As for this sect (or " heresy "), they knew that 
it was everywhere spoken against : — a phrase which seems to 
betray the germs of that ill-will which so soon broke out, but 
which may have been at first suppressed by their own curios- 
ity as well as by St. Paul's courteous bearing. 89 They named 
a day to give him a full hearing, and came in large numbers 
to his lodffinff. 

From the hour of admission in the morning, till the closing 
of the gates at evening, did Paul " expound and testify the 
kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out 
of the law of Moses and out of the projmets." His method 
was the same that it had ever been, from the day when he 
opened his mouth in the synagogue of the Pisidian Antioch. 
And so was the result. Some indeed believed ; but others 
believed not ; and these were clearly the most. They went 
away disputing with one another ; and the interview, which 
Paul had begun with that ardent desire for their salvation 
which had already breathed in his Epistle, 90 was closed with 
the same prophetic denunciation with which he had sorrow- 
fully followed up that utterance of his love, 01 — the words of 
Isaiah, which Christ himself had applied to the unbelieving 
nation, whose every sense was willfully closed to the truth : — 
the five gates of Mansoul blockaded against Emmanuel, "And 
wisdom at each entrance quite shut out." 92 So he once more 
repeated the announcement that he had so often made be- 
fore : — " Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of 
God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." 
His last Avarnings were not altogether in vain ; for after the 
Jews had left him, " they had much reasoning among them- 



m Acts xxviii. 17-22. Besides these 
motives for that moderation of which 
a difficulty has been made, it seems 
very probable, from the Church of 
Rome consisting to a large degree of 
Gentiles, as well as from the constant 
persecutions to which the Roman 
Jews were exposed, and the secrecy 
which the Christians were obliged to 
observe, that the decisive opposition 
of the Jews against the Christians 
had not yet broken out at Rome. 



00 Rom. x. 1 : "Brethren, my heart's 
desire and prayer to God for Israelis, 
that they might be saved. " 

91 Rom. xi. 8 : " According as it is 
written, God hath given them the 
spirit of slumber, eyes that they 
should not see, and ears that they 
should not hear." 

92 Acts xxviii. 23-27 ; Is. vi. 9: Jcr. 
v. 21; Ezek. xii. 2; Matt. xiii. 14, 
15; Markiv. 12; Lukeviii. 10; John 
xii. 40. 



A.d. 61. His Last Appeal to the Jews. 583 

selves " — not only disputation, but inquiry, concerning what 
they had heard. 93 

Here, so far as the Scripture narrative is concerned, the 
curtain falls upon the contest of Jewish unbelief against the 
thino-s that concerned their salvation. And this we incline to 
regard as the very reason why the history of the Acts breaks 
off. As the narrative which illustrates the command of Jesus 
to his Apostles, to " preach the Gospel to the whole world, be- 
ginning at Jerusalem," it opens with the opening of that com- 
mission at the religious centre of the world; it traces the 
successive offers to the Jews of Judea, Samaria and the Dis- 
persion ; to proselytes and Hellenists, in all the provinces that 
they frequented ; "and, it shows how their general disbelief 
caused the Gentiles to be received step by step into their 
place of privilege ; till the Apostle, bringing back the offerings 
of those Gentile converts to bless his countrymen at Jerusa- 
lem, was finally rejected by them, and sent in chains to Rome. 
There, in the* capital of the world, the unbelief of the last 
section of the Jewish family, to whom he revealed their Mes- 
siah, completed the first stage in the history of the diffusion 
of Christianity, at which the mass of the Jewish race are, for 
the time, cut off from the kingdom of God. 

They are not, however, finally left in this fallen state. If 
the last recorded words of the Apostle's living voice proclaim- 
ed at Rome their present sentence, the enduring records of 
his pen, gathering up the substance of the ancient promises, 
had already embodied, in writing to the Church of Rome, that 
prophetic announcement of their restoration, the mystery of 
which remains to be fulfilled, and those three wonderful chap- 
ters of the Epistle to the Romans 94 may be regarded as a sup- 
plement to the Acts. The spread of the Gospel over the pure- 
ly heathen portion of the world belongs to the new chain of 
history which comes down to our own time, and the end of 
which will be found linked with the fulfillment of the promises 
concerning the Jews. Of this all that St. Luke deems it nec- 
essary to record is the happy commencement of Paul's labors 
in the capital, where "he dwelt two whole years in his own 
hired house, and received all that came in unto him ; preach- 
ing the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which con- 
cern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence (or boldness 
of speech), 95 no man forbidding him." 

These are the last words of the Acts. This history of the 

53 ov'C,ijr7j(7iv, Acts xxviii. 28, 29. 94 Rom. ix., x., xi. 

05 Trappr/Giag, Acts xxviii. 30, 31 



584 PavXs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIU. 

planting of the kingdom of Christ in the world brings us 
down to the time when the Gospel was openly proclaimed by 
the Apostle in the Gentile capital, and stops short of the 
mighty convulsion which was shortly to pronounce that king- 
dom established as the divine commonwealth for all men. 
The work of St. Paul belongs to the preparatory period. He 
was not to live through the time when the Son of Man came 
in the destruction of the Holy City and Temple, and in the 
throes of the New Age. The most significant part of his 
work was accomplished, when in the Imperial City he had de- 
clared his Gospel " to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." 
But his career is not abruptly closed. Before he himself fades 
out of our sight in the twilight of ecclesiastical tradition, we 
have letters written by himself, which contribute some partic- 
ulars to his external biography, and give us a far more pre- 
cious insight into his convictions and sympathies. 

§ 14. St. Paul's Imprisonment at Home lasted two full 
years ; nor is it difficult to account for the delay of his hearing 
before the emperor. It was necessary to the prosecution of 
such a case that the accusers should attend in person; and 
that they had not yet arrived is clear from the statement of 
the Roman Jews. 96 In the first year of Paul's imprisonment, 
an embassy was sent from Jerusalem to Rome, headed by Ish- 
mael the high-priest and Helcias the treasurer of the Temple, 
concerning the triple dispute between the Jews, Agrippa, and 
the Procurator, about the Temple wall. If they were also 
charged with the case against St. Paul, they would have little 
encouragement or motive to its active prosecution. The suc- 
cess of their principal object, through the mediation of Pop- 
paea — who was a Jewish proselyte as well as Nero's mistress — 
doubtless exhausted all their influence with the emperor, who 
seems to have detained them at Rome in a spirit of suspicion. 
Nor could they hope, from that sense of justice which Nero 
brought to bear upon cases in which his passions were not 
excited, any reversal of the decision virtually pronounced by 
Felix. But the pretext of bringing up their witnesses from 
all the eastern provinces, and the forms of procedure in appeals 
to Caesar, would give ample opportunities of delay ; and they 
would be glad at least to keep Paul a prisoner. 

Thus, through adversity and injustice, Paul obtained the 
fulfillment of his earnest desire " to preach the Gospel to them 
that are at Rome also." He tells us of the spiritual children 
whom he had begotten in his chains ; 97 of his converts among 

96 Acts xxviii. 21 . 97 Philcm. 10. 



A.D. Gl. 



PauVs Associates at Rome, 



585 



Caesar's household ; 98 and in one passage he gives a vivid de« 
scrip tion of the interest excited on behalf of the Gospel by his 
state and labors. He comforts his faithful and loving con- 
verts at Philippi, who now, as in the beginning of their Chris- 
tian profession, were zealous in ministering to his wants, with 
the news that the troubles in which they sympathized with him 
" had fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel." 
So manifest had it become, in the Prsetorium and elsewhere, 
that the cause of his imprisonment was for Christ, that even 
his bonds made other Christian brethren venture to speak the 
word more freely and fearlessly. The very Judaizers took 
courage to preach their version of the Gospel, in their usual 
spirit of personal hostility to the Apostle, hoping to add to the 
affliction of those bonds which prevented his coming forward 
to refute them. But Paul knew that his controversy with them 
was ended, and he magnanimously rejoices that even they 
helped to make known the name of Christ." 

Meanwhile, amid the restraint, humiliation, and even pain 
of being constantly chained to a soldier, he was comforted 
by the society of some of his most attached disciples. Luke 
shared the greater part, at least, of his imprisonment ; 10 ° and 
Timothy, of whose presence on the voyage to Rome we have 
no indication, seems to have joined him there at a later pe- 
riod. 101 That ever honorable title of his "fellow-prisoners" 
is applied to Aristarchus of Thessalonica, who had been 
Paul's companion from Philippi, and to Epaphras, a Colos- 
sian. 102 In the same salutation with these, and in close con- 
nection with Luke, appear two names peculiarly interesting. 
Mark is mentioned as " cousin to Barnabas," as if expressly 
to remove all doubt as to his identity, and at the same time 
to assure us that the breach caused by his departure f 101:1 
Perga had been entirely healed ; and he is joined with Luke 
and Demas, as the fellow-laborers of the Apostle, in an asso- 



98 Phil. iv. 22. The word oiKiac 
here has doubtless the sense of the 
Latin familia, referring (chiefly at 
least) to the imperial freedmcn and 
slaves. " Phil. i. 12-18. 

100 Col. iv. 14; Philem. 24. Luke 
Jseems not to have been at Rome when 
'the Epistle to the Philippians was 

written. 

101 Col. i. 1 ; Philemon, 1 ; Phil. i. 
1; ii. l'J: compare Heb. xiii. 23. 
There is no clear proof that Timothy 
came to Rome as a prisoner ; for the 
ohiase in Heb. xiii. 23, "Know ye 

Z 2 



that our brother Timothy is set at 
liberty,'''' may quite as well be trans- 
lated is departed. (See below, § 20). 
The hypothesis, maintained by some 
who reject the Pauline authorship of 
the Hebrews, that Timothy's libera- 
tion took place after Paul's martyr- 
dom, and in consequence of the death 
of Nero, seems to us quite untenable. 
(See Conybeare and Howson, vol. ii. 
p. 596.) 

102 Col. i. 7, iv. 10; Philem. 23. 
Concerning Epaphras- and the Philip 
pian E^aphroditus, see note 111. 



586- 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIII. 



aiatidn peculiarly touching from the contrast in which the 
three names afterward stand : Luke, steadfast from first to 
last ; Mark, who had failed in the first trial, ardently desired 
as " profitable for the ministry ; " Demas dismissed with the 
sorrowful sentence which has passed into a by- word. 102 '* 
With these may be mentioned Tychicus of Asia, who had 
been, with Aristarchus, the Apostle's companion from Corinth, 
and who now carried back to his native province those Epis- 
tles which form the great enduring work of Paul's imprison- 
ment. 103 

§ 15. For, so long, as he lived, whether free to travel or 
shut up in prison, Paul would not resign the daily " care of 
all the churches." One means he had of promoting their wel- 
fare daily and hourly — the constant and earnest prayer, which 
his Epistles prove to have been a chief occupation of his soli- 
tude. But he was not shut out from intercourse with the 
Churches themselves. Now that he was tied down to one 
spot, but free to speak and write to whom he pleased, he 
would be the more earnest in making use of that mode of im- 
pression in which he had always excelled, 104 chastened by the 
solemn sadness natural to a prisoner advanced in age. The 
four Epistles, which are perhaps but some among many that 
he wrote from Rome, are linked together by a striking resem- 
blance of tone, thought, and argument, as well as by internal 
marks which place the time of their composition beyond rea- 
sonable doubt. They were all written toward the latter part 
of his imprisonment at Rome, for all refer to the expectation 
of his release ; 105 and those to the Colossians, to Philemon, 
and to the JEphesians, were somewhat earlier than that to the 
Philippians. The three former were sent to Asia by the 
same messengers, their salutations exhibit nearly the same 
names, and, besides their general likeness, those to the two 
churches contain identical passages, such as naturally occur 
in letters written by the same person at the same time. They 
were written after Paul had been long enough at Rome for 
the Philippians to have heard of his imprisonment, and to 
have sent relief to him by the hands of Epaphroditus, who 



:02b Col. iv. 14; Philem. 24; 2 
Tim. iv. 10, 11. 

103 Acts xx. 4-, Col. iv. 7; Eph. 
vi. 21: comp. Titus iii. 12; 2 Tim. 
iv. 12. 

104 "His letters," say they, "are 
weighty and powerful." 

105 Eph. iii. l.vi. 20; Col. iv. 18; 



Philem. 22; Philipp. i. 7, iv. 22. 
The fancy that they were written 
during Paul's imprisonment at Ceesa- 
rea scarcely deserves a serious refuta- 
tion. The two arguments are de- 
cisive, that Paul was not laboring 
in the Gospel at Caesarea (Col. iv. 
3, 4), nor could he expect to be 



AD. 62. Epistle to the Colossians. 587 

was now with him. 100 The interval before the return of 
Epaphroditus, bearing the letter to the Philippians, has to be 
extended so as to not only embrace his dangerous illness, but 
to allow for the news of it having been carried to the Philip- 
pians, and for the report of their sorrow at the tidings having 
been brought back to Rome. 107 As also the expectations of 
a speedy issue of his cause are expressed more distinctly in 
this Epistle, and Paul forms his plans for coming to Philippi, 
its date may be safely placed just before the expiration of 
his two years' imprisonment, in the spring of a.d. 63 ; and 
then, allowing for the necessary interval, the three others may 
be referred to the autumn of 62. Some, however, assign an 
earlier date to the three, from a supposed contrast between 
the mildness of the earlier part of Paul's imprisonment and 
the severer suffering which seems to be reflected in the 
Epistle to the Philippians: a change which might be due to 
the death of Burrus (in Jan., a.d. 62) and the declining influ- 
ence of Seneca. 108 

§ 16. Colossae 109 is a place that has not yet appeared in 
the records of St. Paul's labors. It was an ancient but some- 
what decayed city of Phrygia, on the high-road between Ephe- 
sus and the Euphrates. It stood on the river Lycus, in the 
upper basin of the Marauder, and in the immediate neighbor- 
hood of Laodicea and Hierapolis, cities by whose growth it 
had been eclipsed. 110 The foundation of a church here may 
have been one of the indirect results of Paul's ministry in 
Asia, and now he had heard with deep gratitude of the fruits 
of faith and love wrought among the Colossians by the word 
of Gospel truth, which had come to them, as it was taught 
by Epaphras, a native of the city, 111 who, having been to 



soon coming to Phrygia (Philem. 
22). 

106 Col. vi. 12 : comp. Phil. i. 7, iv. 
18. 

107 Phil. ii. 25-30. 

108 Comp. Col. iv. 3, 4, with Phil, 
i. 20, 21, 30, ii. 27. 

m Ko?MO(jai, on coins and inscrip- 
tions, and in classical writers, but the 
later Greek writers have Ko/Maoai 
jhe reading of the best MSS. in Col. 
i. 2), which perhaps represents the lo- 
cal pronunciation. The later name 
of Colossae was Chonse, and its site 



Journey, when he passed through all 
Phrygia (Acts xviii. 23, xix. 1), or 
when, during his prolonged stay at 
Ephesus, he spread the Gospel over 
all Asia, to which province Colossae 
belonged politically. But his own 
words seem distinctly to imply that 
he had never been there, or at Lao- 
dicea, or in the district. (Col. ii. 1.) 
110 St. Paul mentions the Christians 
of these cities, and especially the 
church at Laodicea, in connection 
with Colossa? (Col. ii. 1, iv. 13, 15, 
16). St. John enumerates Laodicea, 



has been discovered near the village but not Colossal, among the seven 
of Chonas. It has been urged that ; churches of Asia. 
St. Paul would probably have visited ! U1 6 kt, v[jujv, Col. iv.- 12. For a 
Colossae on his Third Mission a* *j fuller discussion of the question, 



588 PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIII. 

them a faithful minister of Christ, had now brought to Paul, 
in his imprisonment, the glad tidings of their love in the 
Spirit. 112 

In writing to congratulate them on their state, and to utter 
his prayers for their growth in the knowledge of God, the 
Apostle takes occasion, with his never-failing faithfulness, to 
warn them against evils about which perhaps it was a part of 
the mission of Epaphras to consult him. The Judaizers 
had come hither also, trying to enslave the converts to " food 
and drink, and the observance of feast, new moon, and sab- 
baths ;" and the Apostle warns them not to suffer themselves 
to be judged by " things which are a shadow of things to 
come, but the body is of Christ." 113 The false teacher, — for 
there seems an allusion to some individual 114 — not improbably 
an Alexandrian Jew — seems to have "led them captive" 115 
by a species of Gnostic philosophy, which the Apostle de- 
scribes as " vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the 
rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." As the es- 
sence of this philosophy consisted in the denial of Christ's 
Headship over the universe, and the ascription of creative and 
distinctive powers to various orders of beings, it was natural- 
ly connected with the Eastern theosophy which seems to 
have become almost indigenous at Colossae, and which has 
strangely re-appeared in a Christianity corrupted by heathen 
elements. The Oriental worship of beings intermediate be- 
tween God and man was easily transferred to angels ; and 
this practice, having been condemned by a council held at 
Laodicea in the fourth century, is mentioned both by Theo- 
doret and by the Byzantine writer Nicetas Choniates, who 

whether Epaphras founded the three Mosaic observances are joined 
Church, see Alford's Prolegomena to together in 1 Chron. xxiii. 31. Com- 
thc Epistle, Greek Test., vol. iii.pp. 'pare also Gal. iv. 10." (Conybeare 
35, foil. According to the prevalent I and Howson, in he.) 
system of abbreviation (like Silas for j 114 BMirere, fir) rig K. r. 1. (ver. 8) : 
Silvanus, Lucas for Lucanus, Apollos ! M^ ovv tic vfiac Kpiveru (16) ; MrjSeir 
for Apollonius or Apollodorus, etc.) j vfiac Karafipafiev eru (18). 
the name Epaphras is probably the [ 115 avlayuycbv, ver. 8. It has been 
same as Epaphroditus; and the prob- j disputed whether these three corrup- 
tibility that he came to Rome by j tions, Judaism, Gnostic philosophy, 
way of Macedonia admits of his j and Oriental theosophy (uniting an- 
being identified with the Epaphro- gel -worship with asceticism) were 
ditus of Philippians ii. 25, iv. 28, ! separately introduced, or were errors 
though it seems more natural to combined in the same false teaching, 
suppose the latter to have been a i The latter view is favored by the 
Philippian. j whole tone of the Apostle's argument, 

312 Col. i. 3-8. and bv ihe combination * f ihce ele- 



iyi 



Col. ii. . IQ, 17. "The same ments in the Jewish Cabbala. 



A.D. G2. 



Epistle to Philemon. 



was a native of the place. 116 This angel- worship was con- 
nected with a willful depreciation of the body which God has 
given to be the organ of the soul, and in which Christ him- 
self came; as if its humiliation bf ascetic practices would 
raise man nearer to that spiritual world of which the false 
teacher pretended to know so much. For his claim to this 
knowledge he is condemned by the Apostle " as intruding 
into those things which he hath not seen, being puffed up at 
random by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head, from 
which the whole body, being by joints and bands fully sup- 
plied and knit together, increases in divine growth." That 
Head he explains to be Christ, with whom having died to 
the elements of the world, and rising again to seek the real 
" things above," where Christ sits on the right hand of God, 
the believer finds in a new spiritual life, " hid with Christ in 
God," the true mortification of all that is evil in his carnal 
nature; and, just because he is already dead to the world, 
refuses to be subject to ordinances after the commandments 
and teachings of men : " Which things," says the Apostle, — 
exposing in one sentence the mingled pride and folly of ascet- 
icism, — " though they have a show of wisdom, in self-chosen 
worship, and in humiliation, and in chastening [literally, not 
sparing] of the body, are of no value to check the indulgence 
of fleshly passions." 117 In one word, Paul meets all these 
errors by a fuller exposition than we have yet met with in 
his Epistles of the eternal glory and dignity of Christ as the 
head of all creation. 118 

§ 17. Such is the scope of the Epistle, which was doubtless 
called forth by the tidings brought by Epaphras, and was 

The best comment, at once on tins 
tradition and on the Apostle's Winn- 
ing, is the mention by Herodotus of 
this very chasm, into which the 
Lvcus poured its stream (Herod, vii. 
30.) 

117 Col. ii. 10-23. We adopt Co- 
nybeare and Howson's rendering of 
the last phrase, which is confessedly 
difficult. The Ta-EtvoypoGhvrj (volun- 
tary humility) of ver. 18 is proved to 



116 Mr. Hartley (Researches in Greece, 
p. ~>2) relates the following legend, 
told by the modern Greeks about 
Colossaj : — "An overwhelming in- 
undation threatened to destroy the 
Christian population of the city. 
They were fleeing before it in the ut- 
most consternation, and imploring 
superior succor for their deliverance. 
At this critical moment, the arch- 
angel Michael descended from heav- 
en, opened the chasm of the earth t o ! refer to ascetic contempt for' the bodv 



which they still point, and at this 
opening the waters of the inundation 
were swallowed up, and the mul- 
titude was saved." A church, built 
at the entrance of this chasm in 
honor of the archangel (yaoc apx- 
ayyeliKOQ), is mentioned by Nicetas. 



by its repetition in connection with 
afyei.Sia otouaroc in ver. 23. 

118 Col. i., ii. The resemblance 
of the argument of these chapters to 
that of the Epistle to the Hebrews .is 
the great internal proof of St. Paul's 
authorship of the latter. 



590 PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIII. 

sent to the Colossians by the hands of Tychicus. 118 But an- 
other person had come to Rome from Colossse about the 
same time, and now returned as a sharer in the mission of 
Tychicus. This was Oxesimus, who is described in the 
Epistle as "a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of 
you," that is, evidently, a Colossian. 120 Such was the kindly 
and honorable introduction with which the Apostle sent back 
to Colossse the man who had left the city and fled to Rome 
as the runaway slave of Philemox, a wealthy and distin- 
guished member of the Colossian Church; 121 and with him 
he sent that brief but pregnant Letter to Philemon, which 
contains the germs of the eternal principles of Gospel moral- 
ity in relation to slavery. It is evident, from the letter to 
him, that Philemon was a man of property and influence, 
since he is represented as the head of a numerous household, 
and as exercising an expensive liberality toward his friends 
and the poor in general. He was indebted to Paul as the 
medium of his personal participation in the Gospel, as the 
Apostle reminds him in that most expressive phrase, " not to 
say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self be- 
sides." 122 His character, as shadowed forth in the Epistle to 
him, is one of the noblest which the sacred record makes 
known to us. He was full of faith and good works, was 
docile, confiding, grateful, was forgiving, sympathizing, chari- 
table, and a man who on a question of simple justice needed 
only a hint of his duty to prompt him to go even beyond it. 123 
Any one who studies the Epistle will perceive that it ascribes 
to him these varied qualities; it bestows on him a measure 
of commendation which forms a striking contrast with the 

church, and a martyr under Nero. 
The Epistle itself shows either that 
the Colossian church met for worship 
in his house, or that his numerous 
family formed in itself one of those 
Christian societies, to which the 
Apostle gives the name of " a church 
in a house." Philem. 2: comp. 
Rom. xvi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 19 : in the 
or at least a resident at Colossre, is j two latter cases, the "church in the 
confirmed from the letter being ad- I house" was manifestly distinct from 
dressed to him jointly with Archip- I the principal church, since greetings 
pus (Philem. 2), who was a Colossian were sent to it through the latter ; 



™ Col. iv. 7, 8. 

120 Col. iv. 9. The comparison of 
this passage with the contents of the 
Epistle to Philemon, puts it beyond 
all doubt that the two were written 
and dispatched at the same time. 
See especially Philem. 12, bv avi- 

121 That Philemon was a native of, 



(Col. iv. 17). His conversion by St, 
Paul may have taken place during 
the Apostle's stay at Ephesus. His 
house at Colossas was pointed out in 
the time of Theodoret ; and another 
tradition made him bishop of the 



and we may infer that a similar 
greeting would have appeared in the 
Epistle to the Colossians, had not 
Paul been writing to Philemon sep« 
arately. 122 Philem. 19. 

123 y er< 2 1 . vTrep 6 Aeyw TroifoeiQ. 



A.D. 62. Epistle to the Ephesians. 591 

ordinary reserve of the sacred writers. It was through such 
believers that the primitive Christianity evinced its divine 
origin, and spread so rapidly among the nations. 

The tone in which Paul asks forgiveness for Onesimus is 
worthy alike of such a man and of himself. He might have 
used his authority in Christ to enjoin what was right; but he 
preferred to exhort Philemon from motives of love, " beino; 
such an one as Paul the elder, and now also a prisoner of 
Jesus Christ." 124 He also had a claim upon Onesimus, his 
" son, begotten in his bonds," and now doubly "profitable " 
(as he does not disdain to say playf ully) " to thee and to 
me." 125 He would have kept him with himself, to minister 
in the Gospel, but he would not even seem to force Philemon 
to confer the favor except of his free-will ; and so he sends 
Onesimus back, having no doubt persuaded him to return as 
an act of Christian duty. But, while thus respecting the 
legal right of the master over the slave, he clearly intimates 
that the law of Christ would not be fulfilled by the simple re- 
turn of Onesimus to slavery :— " Perhaps for this cause he de- 
parted for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever; 
not now as a slave, but above a slave, a brother beloved, first 
of all to me, and how much more to thee, both in the flesh and 
in the Lord. If thou count me therefore in fellowship with 
thee, receive him as myself" 126 Thus completely identify- 
ing himself with Onesimus, the Apostle engages to make 
good any loss that he had caused to his master ; and, as if to 
make the promise legally binding, he writes this passage at 
least of the Epistle with his own hand ; not, however, with- 
out gently reminding Philemon that he would still owe him 
his own soul over and above. 127 Such is the Apostle's practi- 
cal comment on his own text, " In Christ Jesus there is 
neither bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all ; " teaching 
which is the more interesting when viewed in its connection 

124 Pliilem. 8, 9. j went to Rome. There are traditions 

125 Philem. 10, 11. 'Ovr/ci^oe means that he hecaroe bishop of Beroea in 
profitable. The allusion, in its rela- Macedonia, and that he returned to 
tion to Paul, perhaps implies that Rome, and suffered martyrdom un- 
Onesimus had made himself useful in der Nero. 

"nany services which his former con-; 126 Philem. 12-17. The kv caput 

dition would enable him especially seems to refer to the personal rela- 

io render. We know nothing of how tions which united a kind master to 

he had come to that knowledge of a household slave, 
the Apostle which led to his con- m Trpogooei As l q, ver. 19. It 

version : but, as he belonged to a is doubtful how far the words el 6s ri 

Christian household, it is not im- ijoliajae as rj oqei/xl bear out the com- 

probable that he knew something of mon interpretation, that" Onesimus 

:he Christian doctrine before he had robbed his master. 



592 



Paul's First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XV 'ill, 



with the passages in the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephe- 
sians concerning the duties of masters and servants. 

§ 18. Onesimus accompanied Tychicus, the bearer of the 
Apostle's letter to the Colossians, as well as of a very similar 
Epistle to the Church of Ephesus, through which city he 
would pass on his route. His mission to both churches is de~ 
scribed in almost the same terms : to let them know the 
Apostle's condition while inquiring into their own, and to 
comfort their hearts. 128 The Epistle to the Ephesians, how- 
ever, does not seem to have been called forth by any special 
circumstances, nor even to have involved any distinctly pre- 
cautionary teaching, whether against Oriental or Juclaistic 
theosophy, but to have been suggested by the deep love which 
the Apostle felt for his converts at Ephesus, and which the 
mission of Tychicus, with an Epistle to the Church of 
Colossa3, afforded him a convenient opportunity of evincing 
in written teaching and exhortation. The Epistle thus con- 
tains many thoughts that have pervaded the nearly contem- 
poraneous Epistle to the Colossians, reiterates many of the 
same practical warnings and exhortations, and bears even the 
tinge of the same diction. The highest characteristic which 
these two Epistles have in common is that of a presentation 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, fuller and clearer than we find in 
previous writings, as the Head of creation and of mankind. 
All things created through Christ, all things coherent in him, 
all things reconciled to the Father by him, the eternal pur- 
pose to restore and complete all things in him — such are the 
ideas which grew richer and more distinct in the mind of the 
Apostle, as he meditated on the Gospel which he had been 
preaching, and the truths implied in it. 129 In the Epistle to 
the Colossians, this Divine Headship of Christ is maintained 
as the safeguard against the fancies which filled the heavens 
witli secondary divinities, and which laid down rules for an 
artificial sanctity of men upon the earth. In the Epistle to 
the Ephesians, the eternity and universality of God's redeem- 
ing purpose in Christ, and the gathering of men unto him as his 



128 Col. iv. 7-9 ; Eph. vi. 21. 22: the 
slight verbal differences, however, are 
very interesting. The chief ohject of 
the mission to the Colossians, who had 
excited the Apostle's anxiety, was to 
inquire into their state ; to his old and 
attached converts at Ephesus it was 
to inform them of his. The common 
clause, bv £7re/j.ijja Ttpbc vjuac elc rb 



avrb tovto, is followed in the one case 
by Iva yv& ra nepl vutiv, in the other 
by Iva yvuTs ra nept yfitiv. These are 
the true readings, though of course 
they are confounded in the MSS. 

129 It is inferred that Colossians was 
written before Ephesians, from the 
greater expansion of these topics in 
the latter Epistle. 



A.D. 63. Epistle to the Philippians. 593 

members, are set forth as gloriously revealed in the Gospel 
In both, the application of the truth concerning Christ, as the 
Image of God and the Head of Men, to the common relations 
of human life — and particularly of husband and wife, parents 
and children, masters and servants — is dwelt upon in such 
detail as to form a perfect code of Christian social morals. 

Besides all this, the Epistle to the Ephesians enlarges upon 
such profound mysteries of the Divine counsels, displays so 
fully the origin and developments of the Church in Christ, its 
union, communion, and aggregation in him, that this majestic 
Epistle can never be rightly deemed otherwise than one of the 
most sublime and consolatory outpourings of the Spirit of God 
to the children of men. To the Christians at Ephesus, dwell- 
ing under the shadow of the great Temple of Diana, daily see- 
ing its outward grandeur, and almost daily hearing of its pomp- 
ous ritualism, the allusions in this Epistle to that mystic 
building, of which Christ was the corner-stone, the Apostles 
the foundations, and himself and his fellow-Christians portions 
of the august superstructure, must have spoken with a force, 
an appropriateness, and re-assuring depth of teaching, that can 
not be overestimated. 130 

The question, not long since keenly debated, whether the 
Ephesian Church was really that to which this Epistle was 
addressed, or whether it is the Laodicean Epistle mentioned 
in Colossians iv. 16, seems to us to have been so completely 
decided in favor of the received opinion, as only to need a 
supplementary notice. 131 

§ 19. These three Epistles were followed — but, as we have 
seen, at some considerable interval — by the Epnstle to the 
Philippians, whose date nearly all critics concur in fixing to- 
ward the end of Paul's imprisonment, in the latter part of 
a.d. 62, or the beginning of A.r>. 63. The Epistle to the Philip- 
pians resembles the Second to the Corinthians in the effusion of 
personal feeling, but differs from it in the absence of all sore- 
ness. It contains less of censure, and more of praise than any 
other of Paul's extant letters. The Christians at Philippi 
had regarded the Apostle with love and reverence from the 
beginning, and had given him many proofs of their affection. 
They had now sent him a contribution toward his maintenance 

130 Eph. ii. 19-22. Dr. Howson I Pr»torium (Eph. vi. 10-20). An old 
has pointed out the increased force divine, Gurnall, has made this pas- 
which the celebrated description of ; sage the text of an elaborate but racy 
the Christian soldier, warring " not ! commentary {The Christian in Com- 
against flesh and blood," derives from \plete Armor, in 4 vols. 8vo). 
Paul's position as a prisoner in the i m See Notes and Illustrations (B). 



594 PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIIL 

at Rome, such as we must suppose him to have received from 
time to time for the expenses of " his own hired house." The 
bearer of this contribution was Epaphroditus, an ardent friend 
and fellow-laborer of St. Paul, who had fallen sick on the jour- 
ney or at Rome. 132 The Epistle was written to be conveyed 
by Epaphroditus on his return, and to express the joy with 
which St. Paul had received the kindness of the Philippians. 
He dwells therefore upon their fellowship in the work of 
spreading the Gospel, a work in which he was even now labor- 
ing, and scarcely with the less effect on account of his bonds. 
His imprisonment had made him known, and had given him 
fruitful opportunities of declaring his Gospel among the Im- 
perial guard, 133 and even in the household of the Caesar. 134 
He professes his undiminished sense of the glory of following 
Christ, and his expectation of an approaching time in which 
the Lord Jesus should be revealed from heaven as a deliver- 
er. There is a gracious tone running through this Epistle, 
expressive of humility, devotion, kindness, delight in all things 
fair and good, to which the favorable circumstances under 
which it was written gave a natural occasion, and which helps 
us to understand the kind of rrpening which had taken place 
in the spirit of the writer. 

The allusions in this Epistle to the relief of Paul's necessi- 
ties raise the question of how he was maintained during his 
imprisonment, and whether he was still able to labor with his 
own hands. Thus much we know, that, while sometimes 
pinched with want, he so husbanded what resources he had, 
as to be able (for he was not the man to make a v ain promise) 
to repay Philemon whatever he might have lost by Onesi- 
mus. 

When this Epistle was written, Paul was expecting the 
crisis of his earthly fate, as nearer in prospect, but even less 
hopeful in its issue, than when he wrote the other three. 
Then, he was so confidently anticipating a favorable answer 
to the prayers for his release, that he asks Philemon to pre- 
pare him a lodging. Now, while still trusting in the efficacy 
of those prayers, he is above all anxious that they should be 
directed to his support in the coming trial, " That in nothing 
shall I be ashamed, but that with boldness, as always, so now 
also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life 
or by death." 135 There is a striking resemblance, but also a 
striking contrast, between these utterances and his last in the 
Second Epistle to Timothy. The noble note of perfected 

132 Phil. u. 27. 133 Phi1. i. 18. iJ *Phil. iv. 22. 13d Phil. i. 20. 



A.D 63. 



Changes at Rome. 



595 



resignation — "I am now ready to be offered" — is preluded 
by the comparison — " To me to live is Christ, and to die is 
gain." But still it is a comparison, an alternative, in which 
the decision (if it were his to make) seems to him most dim- 
cult ; and his own earnest " desire to depart, and to be with 
Christ, which is far better," is overborne by the need that the 
Church still had of his service ; and so he comes to the confi- 
dent conclusion, " I know that I shall abide and continue with 
you all, for your furtherance and joy of faith." 136 Still, how- 
ever, the conflict may be traced throughout the Epistle ; and 
the passage in which he comes nearest to planning his future 
movements, if released, stands in close connection with the 
opposite alternative : — " Yea, and if I be offered on the sacri 
fice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you 
all. . . . But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus 
shortly unto you .... Him therefore I hope to send present- 
ly, so soon as I shall see how it tcill go loith me. But I trust 
in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly." 137 

It is not difficult to find reasons for all this in the altered 
state' of affairs at Rome. The second year of Paul's im- 
prisonment marks the most unfavorable crisis in the court and 
character of Nero. The death of Burrus (Jan., a.d. 62) de- 
prived the emperor of his most manly councilor, and the 
Apostle of that " captain of the guard " to whom he had been 
recommended by Julius, and by whom he had been leniently 
treated. The office was divided, and Fenius Rufus proved 
too weak to check his colleague Tigellinus, the worst of Xero's 
satellites. 133 The influence of Seneca was declining, though 
we may doubt whether the philosopher would have had much 
sympathy with the Apostle. 139 Worst of all, Nero cemented 
by a marriage his connection with Poppaea, for whose sake 
he divorced and murdered his young wife Octavia; and the 
birth of a son, at the beginning of a.d. 63, gave her a para- 
mount influence, which, as a Jewish proselyte, she would nat- 
urally use against the Apostle. ' Paul's very success in gaining 
converts in the imperial household would increase his danger ; 
and he now complains of that disheartening abandonment by 
friends which is the very gall of adversity. 140 

But, while borne up inwardly by faith, prayer, and resigna* 



186 Phil. i. 21-26. 

137 Phil. ii. 17-24. 

138 Some commentators trace in the 
Epistle to the Philipjnans indications 
of increased rigor in St. Paul's treat- 
ment. 



139 No student of this period of his- 
tory should overlook Mr. Merivale'g 
comparison between Paul and Seneca. 
Hist, of the -Romans under the Empire^ 
vol. vi. p. 292. 

140 Phil. ii. 20. 21. 



596 PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVTIL 

tion, he found a safeguard in the emperor himself. Among 
the sentiments and tastes, the unbridled indulgence of which 
proved the ruin of Nero's character, the sentiment of justice 
to his subjects survived. Paul probably knew this when he 
appealed to Caesar; nor was the appeal made in vain. In 
those cases which Nero reserved for his own hearing, he was 
conspicuous for the precision which he demanded of the 
pleaders, and for the care with which he delivered his judg- 
ments in writing, after taking the opinion of competent ad- 
visers. There is the best reason to believe the prevailing 
tradition that, after an imprisonment of two years, Paul's case 
was heard by the emperor and decided in his favor. We 
have no positive contemporary record of the fact ; but there 
is one piece of direct historic evidence, from which it seems 
fairly to be inferred. The precision with which St. Luke 
specifies the duration of Paul's imprisonment justifies the in- 
\ f erence that it came to an end at the close of the " two years/ 
that is, in the spring of a.d. 63. 

Some modern writers have, indeed, maintained the para- 
doxical theory that Paul's imprisonment ended only with his 
martyrdom, which they place much earlier than the received 
date. 141 Their reasons are purely negative. They set aside 
the statements of ecclesiastical tradition as worthless. The 
testimony of the Pastoral Epistles to St. Paul's freedom, his 
use of it in fresh apostolic circuits in Asia and Europe, and 
his renewed imprisonment at Rome, with the prospect of 
death before him, is got rid of generally by a denial of the 
genuineness of these Epistles, or by referring them to a much 
earlier period of the Apostle's life ; but the latter view seemh 
clearly untenable, so that the objection is resolved into th< 
former. The whole argument will be examined presently. 

There remain the indications in the four Epistles written 
during his imprisonment at Rome, of Paul's assurance of his 
coming release and his plans in reference to it, besides the 
celebrated project, in the Epistle to the Romans, of a visit to 
Spain. But it is contended that St. Paul's expectations were 
not always realized, and that the passages from Philemon and 
Philippians are effectually neutralized by Acts xx. 25 — " I 
know that ye all (at Ephesus) shall see my face no more ; " — ■ 
inasmuch as the supporters of the ordinary view hold that St. 
Paul went again to Ephesus. This is a fair answer to the 
argument from intention alone, leaving out of view the testi- 

141 This received date, though the leading authorities differ to some extent, 
lies within the interval from midsummer a.d. 66 to midsummer a.d. 68 
The authorities will he given in their proper place. (See chap, xix § 13). 



A.D. 63. St PauVs Release. 597 

mony of tradition and the authority of the Pastoral Epistles. 
But this is not all. The testimony of Luke places the ob- 
jectors in this dilemma : if Paul had been martyred at the 
end of two years, Luke would certainly not have broken off 
without recording so important a fact : if his imprisonment 
had been prolonged beyond the two years, Luke could not 
have named this as its precise duration ; and so the conclu- 
sion seems irresistible, that he was then set free. 142 

§ 20. Before we consider the light thrown upon the re- 
mainder of the Apostle's life by the Pastoral Epistles and by 
the ancient Christian writers, it is necessary to notice the re- 
lation of the Epistle to the JHebreios to his first imprisonment 
at Rome. This is not the place to discuss the authorship of 
that marvelous composition. 143 It will be enough here to say 
that the striking resemblances between this Epistle and those 
to the Colossians and Ephesians, on the doctrine of the Head- 
ship of Christ over the creation — not only as to the general 
principle, but in the details of its expression — have long since 
wrought in our mind the growing conviction that the great 
mass of the ancient Church was right in regarding the Epis- 
tle as Paul's, and not only that these works were the product 
of the same mind, but at the same stage of its development, 
and under the same circumstances. And what is more prob- 
able and consistent than that, in* the leisure and retirement 
of his prison, amid the vain pomps and assumptions of 
Csesarism, and when his last attempt to convince the Jews 
had been frustrated, — that the Jew, w T ho had been brought 
up at the feet of Gamaliel, who had made advances in his na- 
tional faith above his equals, and who could now review his 
rabbinical lore in the light of Gospel truth, — that such a 
man, under such conditions, should work out, for the benefit 
of Jewish Christians, especially in Palestine, the great doc- 
trine of Christ's pre-eminence above all creatures, in earth or 
heaven, as established by the covenant of God with his an- 
cient people, and illustrated by all the symbols of their wor- 
ship ? 

The other element, which runs through the whole Epistle, 
tends to the same conclusion. The Avriter, whoever he may- 
be, is addressing a persecuted body of Christians, whose faith 
was sorely tried ; and each point of his great argument is in- 

M2 To those who admit the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles, we can 
not see how this argument can be otherwise than unanswerable ; for, when 
Paul was in prison, expecting his martyrdom, Luke icas with Mm (2 Tim. 
Hi. 11). 

M3 Ser "he Appendix, On the Books of the New Testament. 



598 



Paul 'a First Imprisonment at Home. Chap. XVII L 



tertwined with the most earnest exhortations to constancy, 
the most glowing examples of faith triumphing over suffering 
and death, the most solemn warning against apostasy, ever 
embodied in human language. And if we know of no writer 
of the apostolic age, but Paul, capable both intellectually and 
spiritually of writing the Epistle, 144 so we know of no Church 
except that of Judaea at this very crisis, to which both the 
doctrinal and practical parts of the Epistle would be pre- 
eminently adapted. Troubled within by the Judaistic con- 
flict, they wanted a full and final demonstration of the true 
relation of Judaism to Christianity. Drawn on, with the 
rest of their countrymen, nearer and nearer to the verge of 
that frightful national convulsion in which all that was ex- 
ternal in Judaism was to perish, they needed to be consoled 
and fortified by the lesson that all that was vital had been 
first absorbed into Christianity, so that the rest " having de- 
cayed and grown old, was ready to vanish away." 145 Ex- 
posed doubly, as Christians to the malice of the Jews, and as 
Jews to the hatred of the Greeks, under a government which, 
since the death of Festus, was hurrying on to anarchy, they 
required to be fortified against persecution and apostasy. 

Nay more, there seem to be distinct allusions to the recent 
martyrdom of their own rulers, of which they themselves had 
been spectators, which enable us to specify, with great prob- 
ability, the very persecution under which they suffered. Be- 
sides reminding them of " the great conflict of sufferings " 
which they had endured in " the former days, in which they 
were enlightened," — the persecutions in the first age of Chris- 



144 We may safely affirm, with their 
extant Epistles for our guide, that 
the style is not that of Peter, John, 
or James ; while the whole tone is 
that of apostolic authority. To the 
theory of Luther, who ascribes the 
Epistle to A polios, because he was 
a learned Jew, eloquent and mighty 
in the Scriptures — and much more 
to any unknown person of that nge 
— we may reply, as Herodotus does 
to those who sought an imaginary 
origin for the inundation of the 
Nile, that " it does not admit of dis- 
cussion," because it has not even 
any prima facie evidence in its 
favor. 

145 It seems to be implied in the 
whole argument — and especially in 
the passages viii. 4, fell., and ix. 6, 



foil, (where the present tenses of the 
Greek are unaccountably changed 
into past in the English Version), 
and xiii. 10, foil. — that the Temple 
was standing, and that its usual course 
of divine service was carried on with- 
out interruption. The Epistle must 
therefore have been written before the 
destruction of Jerusalem in A.r>. 70. 
Such passages as vi. 8, viii. 13, x. 25, 
37, xii. 27, indicate the approach of 
the doom foretold by Christ, and 
watched for by the Christians ; but 
these forebodings seem less distinct 
than they might have been if uttered 
immediately before the catastrophe — 
that is, after the Jewish War had 
actually commenced. This argument 
would place the date of the Epistle 
before a.d 66. 



A.D. G3. 



Epistle to the Hebrews. 



599 



tianity, 146 — and after recounting the "great cloud of martyrs" 
of ancient times — he comes to the recent examples of a faith 
parallel to theirs, and exhorts the brethren to " remember their 
own leaders, who had spoken to them the word of the Lord, 
and reviewing (as spectators) the end of their course, to imi- 
tate their faith." 147 Now it was in the second year of Paul's 
imprisonment at Rome (a.d. 62) that the High-priest Ananus 
availed himself of the vacancy in the procuratorship, between 
the death of Festus and the arrival of Albinus, to perpetrate 
the judicial murder of St. James the Just and other leaders of 
the Church of Jerusalem, according to the account of Jose- 
phus. 147b How precisely does the language of the Epistle apply 
to the martyrdom of the Apostle who is usually regarded as 
the first bishop of Jerusalem, and who certainly had a special 
oversight of that Church ! This allusion, moreover, confirms 
the ancient opinion that " the Hebrews," to whom the Epistle 
was addressed (according to the title, for it begins without a 
superscription), were the Jewish Christians of Palestine, and 
of Jerusalem in particular. Its direct j^ersonal appeals and 
salutations prove that it had some such original destination ; 
while the superscription may have been omitted to denote its 
wider destination for Jewish Christians everywhere. 

Besides these general indications, there are specific allu- 
sions, which not only confirm the authorship as St. Paul's, 
but throw light upon the Apostle's movements. Foremost 
of these is the request, so strikingly parallel to passages in the 
Epistle to the Philippians, for the prayers of the brethren, first 
that the writer might be able to keep a good conscience, and 
to maintain an honorable course 148 — words precisely suited to 



* 46 Hcb. x. 32, 33. The following 
passage in the English Version, " For 
ye had compassion of me in my 
bonds " (ver. 34), carries our minds 
irresistibly to "Paul the prisoner of 
Jesus Christ," and to the ministra- 
tion of his friends at Cassarea (Acts 
xxiv. 23), though the connection of 
the for is not clear. But the de- 
cisive preponderance of MS. author- 
ity compels us to give up the read- 
ing role decjxoic piov for role decr/aiocc, 
"ye had compassion ivith the prison- 
ers" for it was thus that they " be- 
came companions (or partners) with 
those who were so treated " (ver. 33). 
But if the Pauline authorship be 
established on other evidence, the 



passage acquires a peculiar force 
as coming from him who was best 
qualified to bear such testimony, the 
very "Saul who made havoc of the 
church, entering into every house " 
— doubtless "spoiling their goods" 
(Heb. x. 34) — "and haling men 
and women, committed them to prison'" 
(Acts viii. 3). 

147 Heb. xiii. 7 : uv avadeupovvrei, 
rrjv enfiaoiv rrjc avaarpocpr/c. 

147b Comp. c. xx. § 7. 

I4S Heb. xiii. 18. The passage ir- 
resistibly suggests Paul's repeated 
professions of a good conscience (Acts 
xxiii. 1, xxiv. 16; 2 Cor..i. 12); and 
for the latter clauses, compare Phil, 
i. 19, 20. 



600 



PauVs First Imprisonment at Rome. Chap. XVIIL 



his trial before Nero — and next that, as the result of his being 
thus supported, he might be restored to them the sooner. 149 
Next comes the passage — " Know ye that our brother Timo- 
thy is set at liberty (or rather, has departed), 1 ™ with whom, if 
he come quickly, I will see you." Compare this with what 
Paul wrote to the Philippians — " I trust in the Lord Jesus to 
send Timotheus shortly unto you ... so soon as I shall see 
how it will go with me. But I trust in the Lord that I also 
shall come shortly." 151 Few can doubt that the two passages 
come from the same pen and refer to the same series of in- 
tended movements, though, as intentions only are spoken of 
in the briefest terms, the details are somewhat obscure. Thus 
much seems clear, that the passage in Hebrews was written 
when, even if the trial was not concluded, 152 its issue was so 
well foreseen the writer could exchange " I trust " for "I will 
see you ; " and when Timothy had departed, probably on his 
mission to the Philippians, to carry to them the good news, as 
Paul had promised, and to bring back word of their state. 153 
Such a mission would supersede the immediate execution of 
Paul's design of visiting Philippi ; 164 and he may have been 
urged to go straight to Jerusalem by the same motives that 
induced him to write the Epistle to the Hebrews. The news 
of the persecution of the Christians by Ananus would doubt- 



149 Heb. xiii. 19: comp. Philem. 
22 ; Phil. i. 25, ii. 24. 

150 Heb. xiii. 23 : a-nolelviievov. 
The best commentators are now gen- 
erally agreed on this sense. Comp. 
Acts xv. 33, xxviii. 25 ; Ex. xxxiii. 
11 in the LXX. ; Polyb. ii. 34, § 12. 
There is no clear evidence that Tim- 
othy was at Koine as a prisoner. 1 
Tim. vi. 12 may refer to his having 
been "a confessor;" but its more 
natural sense seems to be his profes- 
sion of faith at his ordination. 
Comp. c. xx. § 20. 

151 Phil. ii. 19-24. Incidentally we 
may remark on the utter improbabil- 
ity of the Epistle, containing these 
direct personal allusions to the 
writer, being handed down by the 
early Church without some expla- 
nation of who that writer was, had 
there been a question of his being 
any other than St. Paul. The " I 
will see you," "our brother Tim- 
othy," and so forth, are simply ab- 
surd as coming from any but a vcell- 



Jcnown author, who was at once a pris- 
oner at Koine and a near friend of 
Timothy ; while the whole tone of 
the Epistle leaves little doubt that 
that well-known author was also an 
Apostle. 

152 Critics of high authority regard 
the passage xiii. 18, 19, as not im- 
plying that Paul was still a prisoner, 
and ver. 23 as disproving such a 
view. Mr. Lewin says : ' ' Paul, at 
the date of this Epistle, was certain- 
ly at liberty, and was expecting Tim- 
othy from the mission on which the 
latter had been sent to Philippi" 
(Fast. Sac. A.i). 63, No. 1 94 1 ). The 
writer's intention of accompanying 
Timothy (Heb. xiii. 23) seems to show 
that the latter could not well be the 
bearer of the Epistle, as is stated in 
the epigraph: "Written to the He- 
brews from Italy by Timothy." 

153 Phil. ii. 19. 

154 Phil. ii. 24, where the ra^ewc is 
less definite than the rdxtov of Heb, 
xiii. 23. 



Chap. XVIII. 



PauVs Intentions. 



601 



less be brought to Rome by some of the fugitives ; and Paul, 
desiring to strengthen his brethren by his personal presence, 
may have resolved to sail for Judgea, as soon as the navigation 
opened, in company with Timothy, if the latter returned soon 
enough from Philippi. Meanwhile he probably sent the 
Epistle to Jerusalem, to prepare the brethren for his coming. 
As to the place from which he wrote it, the words " They of 
Italy salute you" are decisive, if we accept, as we probably 
should, the rendering of our version. 155 

This reasoning would lead us, with more than probability, 
to the first step of the Apostle's course after his release from 
his imprisonment. For the question is not (as in cases before 
noticed) of a mere intention ; but of a positive intention to be 
executed so immediately that he would not wait long for Tim- 
othy's return: — " With whom, if he come the quicker {ra\iov) 
I will see youP This seems almost decisive for the direction 
of Paul's course straight to Jerusalem, on his liberation in the 
spring of a.d. 63. 

155 Heb. xiii. 24 : ol airb ttjq 'Ira/Uac. Some draw, the opposite inference 
from the word curb, and contend for Ccesarea, as suiting the indications of 
Paul's imprisonment — a theory no more tenable than that which refers the 
Colossians, etc., to Csesarea ; or for Athens, as the place where Timothy 
might have met Paul. But the truth seems to be that ol airo 'IraMag is 
properly used by a person writing from Italy, with reference to the point of 
view of the readers — a point of view so often taken in epistolary language. 




Ancient Ship. 



602 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XVIII 



NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



(A.) LAODICEA. 

The two passages in the N. T. 
where this city is mentioned define 
it geographical position in harmony 
with other authorities. In Rev. i. 
11, iii. 14, it is spoken of as belong- 
ing to the general district which con- 
tained Ephesus, Smyrna, Thyatira, 
Pergamus, Sardis, and Philadelphia. 
In Col. iv. 13, 15, it appears in still 
closer association with Colossae and 
Hierapolis. And this was exactly 
its position. It was a town of some 
consequence in the Roman province 
of Asia ; and it was situated in the 
valley of the Maeander, on a small 
river called the Lycus, with Colossaj 
and Hierapolis a few miles distant to 
the west. 

Built, or rather rebuilt, by one of 
the Seleucid monarchs, and named 
in honor of his wife, Laodicea became 
under the Roman government a place 
of 6ome importance. Its trade was 
considerable : it lay on the line of a 
great road ; and it was the seat of a 
conventus. From Rev. iii. 17, we 
should gather it was a place of great 
wealth. The damage which was 
caused by an earthquake in the reign 
of Tiberius (Tac. Ann. xiv. 27) was 
promptly repaired by the energy of 
the inhabitants. It was soon after 
this occurrence that Christianity was 
introduced into Laodicea. In subse- 
quent times it became a Christian 
city of eminence, the see of a bishop, 
and a meeting-place of councils. It 
is often mentioned by the Byzantine 



writers. The Mahometan invaders 
destroyed it ; and it is now a scene 
of utter desolation : but the extensive 
ruins near Denislu justify all that we 
read of Laodicea in Greek and Ro- 
man writers. Many travelers have 
visited and described the place, but 
the most elaborate and interesting 
account is that of Hamilton. 



(B.) THE EPISTLE TO THE 
EPHESIANS, AND THE LAO- 
DICEAN EPISTLE MENTION- 
ED IN COL. IV. 16. 

The theory that the Epistle, to the 
Ephesians was written to the Laodi- 
ceans, and sent by Tychicus at the 
same time as the Epistle to the Colos- 
sians, the two churches being exhort- 
ed to a mutual reading of the two let- 
ters, involves two questions — (1.) Is 
this Epistle wrongly entitled to the 
Ephesians? (2.) Was it addressed to 
the Laodiceans ? The importance of 
this distinction will appear presently 
from the fact that the arguments for 
each proposition are not quite mutu- 
ally corroborative. 

I. External Evidence. — 1. The 
Vatican MS. (Codex B), well known 
as being' of the highest authority, 
omits the name of Ephesus in the 
superscription, the words which we 
enclose in brackets being only added 
in the margin by a much later hand — 
HavTiog, aTcoGtoXog 'Xtjgov Xpiarov did 
delr/parog deov, rolg ayioic role ovaiv 
[ev 'E^tcRi/) nal iugto~i<; iv Xpiard) 'Xt]* 



C?HAP. XVIII, 



Notes and Illustrations. 



603 



gov (Eph. i. 1) — where it is at once 
evident how difficult it is to make 
sense of the phrase, rolg ovatv nal tu- 
otoZc, which is also a construction 
without a parallel in St. Paul's writ- 
ings. On the other hand, this formu- 
la, ivith the name of the place, is pre- 
cisely parallel to the superscriptions 
of the Epistles to the Romans, the 
Corinthians (second Epistle), and the 
Philippians. As a matter of textual 
evidence, the omission is outweighed 
by the presence of the words in all 
the other principal MSS., and in all 
the ancient versions. In reference 
to modern authority, Teschendorf has 
now removed the brackets within 
which he formerly placed the words. 
Nor must it be overlooked that most, 
if not all, the advocates for their re- 
jection — constrained by their accept- 
ance of Marcion's authority (see be- 
low), as well as by the desire both to 
make sense of the passage and to de- 
cide who really were the persons ad- 
dressed — not only omit ev 'Epto-cj, but 
insert ev AaoStneia, thus themselves re- 
jecting that very authority of the Codex 
_B, which is their main external argu- 
ment. 

Of course the omission, which in 
such a MS. could hardly be accident- 
al, indicates a doubt as to the genu- 
ineness of the word at a very early 
period. The existence of such a 
doubt, which we are about to prove, 
accounts for the peculiar form of the 
omission. The doubt being whether 
the words ev Ecpeao) or ev Aaodmeia 
should be inserted, the transcriber ap- 
pears to have compromised the matter 
by omitting both, at the expense of 
leaving the sense imperfect. Thus 
the absence of the words, which is the 
only fact attested by the MS., is ac- 
counted for, while the preponderating 
testimony of the MSS. and Versions 
proves the opinion of Christian an- 
tiquity that the doubt was not well 
founded. 



2. St. Basil (in the latter half of the 
fourth century) had learned from 
those before him that the Ephesians 
(to whom, however, he believes the 
Epistle to have been addressed) were 
not named in the superscription, 
which ran role ayiocg role ovoi nal tti- 
gtoIc, and so he had himself seen it 
in ancient copies. This again at- 
tests the fact of the words having 
been at least questioned very early, 
which is also confirmed by Tertullian, 
Jerome, and Epiphanius, who are 
however referring to the very contro- 
versy raised by Marcion, in which 
the explanation of the doubt is to be 
found. 

3. As early as the first half of the 
third century {about a century and a 
half before Basil), the heretic Marcion 
asserted that the words Ilpdc Aaodt- 
neac were in the title of the MSS. 
which he used ; but Marcion is uni- 
versally charged by the Christian Fa- 
thers with making arbitrary altera- 
tions in those books of the Scripture 
which he accepted. It is indeed ar- 
gued that he tampered with the text 
on doctrinal grounds which could not 
induce him to alter the title of an 
epistle. But the testimony of a per- 
son who corrupts documents in some 
points becomes worthless in all ; and 
Marcion is actually accused by his 
contemporary, Tertullian, of insert- 
ing the words Ilpdc Aaodineac in the 
title. Nor can we admit that the 
statement about Marcion's adding the 
words proves that there was no ad- 
dress in the copies known to Tertul- 
lian, or even, if so, that the conclu- 
sion would have much force. For it 
is admitted on all hands that the 
Epistle was addressed to some par- 
ticular church or churches, and the 
whole question is about the substitu- 
tion of one name for another. 

Archbishop Ussher propounded.the 
ingenious conjecture, that the Epistle 
was a circular letter, addressed to 



604 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XVIII 



several churches, in the same way as 
the Epistle to the Galatians was ad- 
dressed to all the churches in Gala- 
tia, and those to Corinth to the 
Christians "in the whole province 
of Achaia " (2 Cor. i. 1) ; and that 
Tychicus carried several copies of it, 
differently superscribed, one for Lad- 
dicea, another for Hierapolis, anoth- 
er for Philadelphia, and so on. Hence 
many of the early copyists, perplexed 
by this diversity in their copies, might 
be led to omit the words in which the 
variation consisted ; and thus the 
state of the earliest known text of the 
Epistle (that of the Codex Vaticanus) 
would be explained. When the 
Epistle was afterward spread over the 
world, Ephesus, the great commercial 
capital of Asia, being the place from 
which copies of it were mostly pro- 
cured, it would obtain the title of the 
"Epistle from Ephesus," and lastly 
the name of Ephesus would be insert- 
ed in the text. This theory, howev- 
er, besides wanting the substratum of 
any positive evidence, is open to the 
objection, that in the examples cited 
of a plurality of address, as well as in 
John's Epistles to the Seven Church- 
es of Asia (the very churches now in 
question), there is one common su- 
perscription indicating all those who 
were addressed ; and so here we 
should expect some such phrase as 
role ouaiv ev 'Acta (with an extension, 
if necessary, to include the churches 
beyond the limits of the province). 

II. Internal Evidence. — 1. The 
absence of any salutation to individual 
members of a church so familiar to 
Paul as the Ephesians is too negative 
to be of any weight, and if of any, it 
would only go to prove the very 
point which the objectors themselves 
give up, that it was a General Epis- 
tle. Its special character is conclu- 
sively proved by chap. vi. 21, 22, as 
well as by the mention of the brethren 
in ver. 23. 



The suggestion that Paul had no 
personal friends to greet among the 
Laodiceans, "who had not seen his 
face in the flesh," is answered by the 
fact, that of the only two persons sa- 
luted by name in the Epistle to the 
Colossians, Nymphas is a Laodicean 
(Col. iv. 15: some suppose the same 
of Archippus, ver. 17). In the Epis- 
tle to the Philippians, also distin- 
guished for their close relations to the 
Apostle, the personal salutations are 
equally "conspicuous by their ab- 
sence ; " for the two ladies, Euodia 
and Syntyche, are not named in the 
way of salutation, but of exhortation 
to make up some quarrel (Phil. iv. 
20). Tychicus might well be charged 
with individual salutations to those 
friends whose very number made it 
difficult for the Apostle to indite his 
wonted autograph with that fettered 
hand to which he pathetically refers 
in the salutation of the sister epistle, 
as if apologizing for its brevity: — < 
" The salutation by the hand of me 
Paul : remember my bonds " (Col. iv. 
18). 

2. The Christians to whom he 
writes are addressed as exclusively 
Gentiles, recent converts, of whose con- 
version Paul knew only by report, and 
who only knew him as an Apostle by 
hearsay, so that he might need cre- 
dentials to accredit him with them 
(Eph. i. 13, 15, ii. 11, 13, iii. 2, 4, iv. 
17, v. 8) ; all of which points are in- 
appropriate to the Ephesians, and ex- 
actly suitable to the Laodiceans, 
We answer in one word, that these 
texts do not seem to sustain the in- 
ferences drawn from them. 

(i.) The magnificent statement of 
the position of the Gentiles in the 
Church (not without important allu- 
sions to their communion with their 
Jewish brethren, ii. 12-22) is surely 
far too suitable to the Christians of 
such a city as Ephesus, to be affected 
by any question of how many Jewa 



Chap, XVIII. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



605 



were included in that Church. It is 
enough for us to know (what is clear 
from Acts xix. 8-10) that the major- 
ity of the Ephesian Christians were 
Gentiles ; and it might just as well be 
argued, from Eom. xi. 13, that there 
were no Jews in the Church at Rome, 
(ii.) It is in connection with this 
same argument, to impress upon 
them the duties resulting from their 
translation from the kingdom of dark- 
ness into the kingdom of light, that 
the Apostle dwells so emphatically — 
not upon the newness of their conver- 
sion, but upon the magnitude of the 
change (ch. i. 13, ii. 13, v. 8). What 
he had heard of their faith and love 
refers evidently, not to first intelli- 
gence, but to the cheering news 
brought to him in his confinement at 
Rome (i. 15); while the converse 
reference in iii. 1, foil., to what not 
the Ephesians only — but all the Gen- 
tiles, as whose representatives Paul 
deals with them — had heard of "the 
dispensation of the grace of God 
committed to him for them," is call- 
ed forth from "Paul the prisoner of 
Jesus Christ " by his inability to con- 
verse with them in person of this great 
revelation. The eiye (which Cony- 
beare strains into if, as I suppose, ye 
have heard) is surely rhetorical, and 
not hypothetical, an appeal to their 
certain knowledge. The phrase, " as 
I wrote afore in few words," might 
seem, at first sight, to support the 
opinion that Paul had for the first 
time opened the subject to them in 
some previous letter. He might in- 
deed have availed himself of his en- 
forced leisure to write more fully of 
the nature of that ministry to the Gen- 
tiles, which he had practically exer- 
cised when among them ; but the 
truth seems to be that he is simply 
referring back to a passage in this 
very Epistle (i. 9, 10). This inter- 
pretation is adopted by Conybeare, 
and yet this is the sole oassage to 



which he can refer in proof of the 
Apostle's being only known to them 
by hearsay, and needing credentials 
(v. 4) to accredit him with them ! 
Surely enough has been said to show 
the haste of the same author's judg- 
ment concerning the destination of 
the Epistle — "The least disputable 
fact is, that it was not addressed to 
the Church of Ephesus." 

3. There still remains the mostim= 
portant and difficult point, the allu- 
sion in the salutation of the Epistle 
to the Colossians: " Salute the breth- 
ren which are in Laodicea, and Nym- 
phas, and the church which is in his 
house. And, when this Epistle is 
read among you [i. e., when you have 
done reading it], cause that it be read 
also in the Church of the Laodiceans ; 

AND THAT YE LIKEWISE READ THAT 

from Laodicea (ttjv ek AaodiKeiar, 
i. e., the Epistle sent to that city, and 
which you will get from it). No 
stress can be laid upon De Wette's 
argument, that this Laodicean letter 
must have been written some time be- 
fore, or else Paul would not now be 
saluting the Laodiceans through an- 
other Church ; nor upon the internal 
evidence that the Epistle to the Co- 
lossians was written before that to the 
Ephesians, for, as they were sent to- 
gether, this passage may be a post- 
script, or may refer to a letter which 
Paul was about to write and send bv 
the same hand. The clear common 
sense of the passage is, that Paul was 
sending by Tychicus a letter to Lao- 
dicea, as well as this to Colossae, and 
that the two Churches were to ex- 
change the reading of the two Epis- 
tles. 

Now to answer, or fail to answer, 
the very difficult question, What and 
where is the Epistle to the Laodiceans ? 
is a very long way from the conclu- 
sion that it was the "Epistle to the 
Ephesians." The appositeness of the 
identification is just the most suspi- 



606 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XVIIX 



cious sort of argument ; for it is the 
very consideration that would tempt 
a speculative critic, like Marcion, to 
make the identification. Such cases 
are of constant occurrence in all 
branches of inquiry. For example, 
the Greek verb has three Voices ; and 
it has three Perfects ; the 1st and 2d 
Perfect Active, and the 3d form, 
which is common to the Middle and 
the Passive : so tho grammarians 
make the symmetrical re-adjustment 
of assigning one to each Voice, like 
Cyrus in the fable with the- two coats. 
So Paul sent by Tychicus Epistles to 
the Colossians and to the Laodiceans. 
We have the one to the Colossians, 
and another addressed (in the exist- 
ing title) to the Ephesians. But now 
the Epistle to the Laodiceans is want- 
ing : so take the one away from the 
Ephesians and give it to the Laodi- 
ceans ! Assuredly far stronger di- 
rect evidence than we possess is re- 
quired to justify this redistribution of 



Epistles, even with such high authori. 
ties as Ussher and Paley, Conybeara 
and Lewin. 

The idea of Wieseler, that the Lao- 
dicean Epistle is that to Philemon, is 
open to the like objection, and is 
negatived by the proofs that Philemon 
and Onesimus were Colossians. Even 
commentators must sometimes sub- 
mit to confess, that when a thing is 
lost they don't know where it is. All 
admit the probability that Paul wrote 
many letters that have been lost ; and 
the general likeness of two Epistles, 
intended for readers in neighboring 
cities, may be a sufficient reason for 
the preservation of only one. It may 
however be said, without hesitation, 
that the apocryphal Epistola ad Lao- 
dicenses is a late and clumsy forgery. 
It exists only in Latin MSS., and is 
evidently a cento from the Galatians 
and Ephesians. A full account of it 
is given by Jones (On the Canon, ii. 
31-49). 



r 




Stairs of the Modern Capitol at Rome. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE LAST DAYS OF ST. PAUL AND ST. PETER; AND THE COM- 
PLETE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH FROM THE RELEASE 

OF ST. PAUL TO THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, A.D. 63-70. 



§ 1. St. Paul's movements after his release— General indications of the Pas- 
toral Epistles. § 2. Difficulties of detail— Scheme of Mr. Lewin : St. 
Paul sails for Jerusalem ; and goes thence, by Antioch and Asia Minor, 
visiting Colossae, to Ephesus. § 3. His labors at Ephesus— State of 
the Ephesian Church, as shown in the Epistles to Timothy— Church 
organization — Appearance of heresies. § 4. St. Paul's visit "to Crete — 
Commissions of, and Epistles to, Timothy at Ephesus, and Titus in 
Crete — Charges to them — Nature of their office. § 5. The work of 
Timothy at Ephesus — His peculiar trials. § 6. New forms of error ; as 
developments of Judaism — Combination of superstition and philosophy, 
of ritualism and libertinism — Germs of future heresies — The Great 
Apostasy — Mysticism, Asceticism and Gnosticism — Severity of Paul in 
rebuking these heresies. § 7. Further account of them in the Second 
Epistle to Timothy — Heresy of Hymenaeus and Philetus, that the Resur- 
rection was past — Moral corruption — Its prevalence at Crete — Epistle 
to Titus. § 8. Paul visits Macedonia and Corinth, and winters at Nicop- 
olis — Gessius Florns in Judaea — The burning of Rome, and Nero's 
persecution of the Christians — Testimony of Tacitus to Christ and the 
Christians. § 9. Movements of St. Paul — Tradition of his journey to 



608 Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 

Spain — The presumptive arguments and direct testimony examined. 
§ 10. Last stage of the Apostle's course — Second Epistle to Timothy — 
Paul probably arrested at Ephesus, on the information of Alexander 
the brass-founder— -Indications of his route to Kome as a prisoner. 
§ 11. St. Paul's second imprisonment at Rome — He is treated as a 
felon, unto bonds : but the word of God is not bound — New converts : 
Pudens and Claudia; their supposed British origin — His first hearing 
and deliverance from "the Lion" — Was it before Nero in person? 
§ 12. The interval before his death — Loneliness: constancy of Luke and 
apostasy of Demas — Mark — Motives of the urgent invitation to Timothy 
— Prospects of martyrdom — The Apostle's course is finished. § 13. 
His death and burial — Discussion of the date. § 14. Personal appear- 
ance «vnd character of St. Paul — Early attacks on him — The Clementines. 
§ 15. St. Peter associated by tradition with St. Paul in martyrdom — 
Review of his life — His last appearance in the Acts — His probable oc- 
cupations — Supposed connection with the Church of Corinth. § 16. 
His relations to the Churches of Asia — His First Epistle, written from 
Babylon — State of the Babylonian Jews. § 17. Silvanus and Mark the 
companions of Peter — Indications of intercourse with Paul — Designed 
harmony of the Epistle with Paul's teaching. § 18. Pauline style of 
the Epistle accounted for by Peter's study of Paul's Epistles and his 
connection with Silvanus. § 19. Discussion of the tradition of St. 
Peter's episcopate at Rome — Evidence of his late visit to Rome, and his 
crucifixion there under Nero — St. Peter not the Founder or resident 
head of the Church of Rome — His own testimony to the true Rock and 
spiritual Stones of the Church. § 20. The departure of Peter and Paul, 
and the end of Nero's reign, the epoch of the complete establishment of 
the Church, which now replaces the local habitation of God on earth ; 
fulfilling our Lord's prophecy of his coming in the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, the type of his last Advent. 

§ 1. The argument at the end of the last chapter led us to 
the conclusion that, after his imprisonment at Rome had last- 
ed for two years, Paul was heard by ISTero and set at liberty. 
Moreover we inferred from the Epistle to the Hebrews that 
he was purposing to make use of his recovered freedom in 
order to pay a visit to his brethren in Judaea, who needed the 
strongest comfort and confirmation in the terrible trials which 
now beset both their church and nation. For further light 
our only certain guidance is to be found "in the Pastoral 
Epistles ; 1 of which the first to Timothy and that to Titus are 
nearly contemporaneous, and the second to Timothy the 
latest. From them, without encroaching on the domain of 
conjecture, we draw the following conclusions. 2 (1.) St. Paul, 



1 For the full discussion of the 
genuineness of these Epistles, see the 
articles on them in the Dictionary of 
the Bible. 

2 It is true that there are many 
critics, including Wieseler and Dr. 
Davidson, who admit the genuine- 



ness of these Epistles, and yet, by re- 
ferring 1 Timothy and Titus to an 
earlier period, and by strained expla- 
nations of the allusions in 2 Timothy, 
get rid of the evidence they are gener- 
ally understood to give in favor of a 
second imprisonment. The voyages 



A.D. 63. The Pastoral Epistles. 609 

at some time after leaving Rome, must have visited Asia 
Minor and Greece ; for he says to Timothy, 3 "I besought thee 
to abide still at Ephesus, when I was setting out for Mace- 
donia." After being once at Ephesus, he was purposing to 
go there again, 4 and he spent a considerable time at 
Ephesus. 5 (2.) He paid a visit to Crete, and left Titus to or- 
ganize churches there. 6 He was intending to spend a winter 
at one of the places named Mcopolis. 7 (3) He traveled by 
Miletus, 8 Troas 9 (where he left a cloak or case and some 
books), and Corinth. 10 (4.) He is a prisoner at Rome, " suf- 
fering unto bonds as an evil-doer," ll and expecting to be soon 
condemned to death. 12 At this time he felt deserted and sol- 
itary, having only Luke, of his old associates, to keep him 
company; and he was very anxious that Timothy should 
come to him without delay from Ephesus, and bring Mark 
with him. 13 

The end of the period covered by these movements is that 
also of the Apostle's whole career, and the Epistles themselves 
furnish strong arguments for placing them near together and 
at a date as advanced as possible in the history of the Apos- 
tle and the Church. The peculiarities of style and diction by 
which these are distinguished from all his former Epistles, 
the affectionate anxieties of an old man and the glances fre- 
quently thrown back on earlier times and scenes, the disposi- 
tion to be hortatory rather than speculative, the references to 
a more complete and settled organization of the Church, the 
signs of a condition tending to moral corruption, and resem- 
bling that described in the apocalyptic letters to the Seven 
Churches — would incline us to adopt the latest date which 
has been suggested for the death of St. Paul, so as to inter- 
pose as much time as possible between the Pastoral Epistles 
and the former group. This view would allow for the possi- 
bility of a period between Philippians and Hebrews and I. 
Timothy covered by no Scriptural records or even allusions. 

§ 2. As to further details, we are encountered by immense 

required by the two former Epistles, ' evidence to be untenable. The whole 
and the writing of them, are placed question is discussed in a master- 
within the three years spent chiefly ly and decisive manner by Alford in 
at Ephesus (Acts xx. 31). Bat the his Prolegomena to the Pastoral Epis= 
hypothesis of voyages during that : ties. 

period not recorded by St. Luke is far | 3 1 Tim. i. 3. 4 lTim. ir. 13. 
more arbitrary than that of a release j 5 2 Tim. i. 18. 6 Tit. i. 5. 
from Rome, which is objected to ex- j 7 Tit. iii. 12. 8 2 Tim. iv. 20. - 
pressly because it is arbitrary; and I 9 2Tim.iv. 13. :0 2 Tim. iv. 20. 
such a distribution of the Pastoral j n 2 Tim. ii. 0. 12 2Tim.iv. 6. 
Epistles is shown bv overwhelming \ 13 2 Tim. i. la.iv 10,9-12. 
Aa 2 



610 



Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX 



difficulties from the paucity of materials and the multitude 
of opinions. The simplest and most condensed scheme is 
that of Mr. Lewin, based entirely upon the Epistles, 14 to the 
exclusion of ecclesiastical tradition, except for the time of the 
Apostle's martyrdom. He supposes that St. Paul, released 
from his imprisonment in the spring of a.d. 63, sailed, as he 
had promised, for Jerusalem. Here he would be in no small 
danger, especially from his old enemy, the ex-high-priest 
Ananias, whose influence (Josephus tells us) was now at its 
height. Besides, he would be eager to revisit the scenes of 
his special labors, and to execute his purpose of confirming 
those Asiatic churches which " had not seen his face in the 
flesh," but for which he had "had so great a conflict'*' in 
spirit, Colossse, Laodicea, and Hierapolis. 15 When therefore 
we meet him next, leaving Ephesus, on his way to Mace- 
donia, 10 it is reasonable to suppose that he made a circuit — 
like those of former days — by Antioch and Asia Minor, stay- 
ing at Colossa3, where he had asked Philemon to j)repare him 
a lodging. 17 

§ 3. That the Apostle would spend a considerable time at 
the city which had been so long the scene of his former labors 
is probable in itself ; and the First Epistle to Timothy proves 
the magnitude of his work there. The Gentile Churches, 
left to themselves during the Apostle's five years' absence — 
and in particular that of Ephesus, which we may perhaps 
regard as a type of the rest — had begun to feel the want of a 
more perfect organization ; and we may venture to say that 
to complete that organization was a chief providential end of 
the Apostle's release. Beginning it himself, and carrying it 
out through the ministry of Timothy here, as of Titus in 
Crete, he had occasion to place on permanent record, in the 
Epistles written to direct their action, the great principles of 
ecclesiastical order. 

These Epistles also prove that heretical opinions, corrupt 
practices, and personal ambitions — the evils of which he 
forewarned the Ephesian Elders when he parted from them 
at Miletus 18 — had grown to a head during his long absence, 



"That is, on the facts stated in the 
.Pastoral Epistles, and on the inten- 
tions indicated in the former group, 
those written during Paul's First 
Imprisonment. Lewin, Life of St. 
Paul, and Fasti Sacr'i. 

15 Col. ii. 1, iv. 13. 

16 1 Tim. i. 3. Dr. Howson ap- 
plies this passage to, a second visit 



to Ephesus, on Paul's return from 
his (supposed) journey to Spain. 
Passing over the voyage to Jerusa- 
lem, he supposes the Apostle to have 
gone from Rome, by way of Macedo- 
nia (Phil. ii. 24), to Ephesus, and 
thence to have paid his promised vis- 
it to Colossae. 17 Philem. 22. 
lb Acts xx. 19,20, 



A.D. G4 (?). Commissions to Timothy and Titus. 



611 



and needed to be firmly repressed. It seems, therefore, not 
unreasonable to suppose that Paul spent the whole winter of 
63-64 at Ephesus, if indeed that time be not all too short for 
what he had to do. In fact he seems to have made the city 
his head-quarters at this period, for, when he leaves it for 
Macedonia, he contemplates returning as soon as possible, 
and treats the commission that he leaves with Timothy as an 
episode in his own government of the Ephesian Church." 

§ 4. Early in a.d. 64 (according to Mr. Lewin's scheme) 
Paul left Timothy at Ephesus as his representative — a vicar- 
apostolic rather than a bishop — while he himself sailed with 
Titus to Crete, to correct abuses similar to those which had 
grown up at Ephesus. Leaving Titus there to complete this 
work, with the same authority with which Timothy was in- 
vested, he returned to Ephesus, to prepare for a visit to his 
other chief field of labor in Macedonia and Greece, according 
to his promise to the Philippians. 20 Timothy, who would 
gladly have accompanied his spiritual father, as on former 
journeys, was prevailed upon to continue his work at Ephe- 
sus, for which Paul gave him a solemn charge. 21 It is impor- 
tant to observe how emphatically St. Paul dwells on this idea 
of a charge throughout the Epistles to Timothy and Titus — 
a charge for them to keep themselves, and to enforce on all 
the Church — bishops and deacons, men and women, rich and 
poor, faithful disciples and factious opponents. Nor is it less 
interesting to notice the new phase which this arrangement ex- 
hibits in the history of Christianity. The Churches, hitherto 
accustomed to look for guidance to their apostolic founders, 
are now entrusted to the delegated authority of comparative- 



19 Sec 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15, and the 
"till I come" in iv. 15. 20 Phil. ii. 24. 

21 1 Tim. i. 3, 4 : Katiuc tt a p e k d- 
2, ec a us Trpoofieivai. Mr. Levvin re- 
marks that the word Ttpoa/ueivai, to 
stay on, implies first that Paul had 
previously placed Timothy in the 
position he filled at Ephesus, and 
secondly that, on his departure for 
Macedonia, he had desired him to 
continue there. It is impossible to 
make out with complete exactness 
the relations between the missions of, 
and the Epistles to, Timothy and Ti- 
tus. This alone is clear, that they 
were placed at Ephesus and Crete 
under similar circumstances, and 
about the same time : and that the 



Epistles to them were nearly contem- 
poraneous ; but the details are very 
doubtful, though various satisfactory 
theories may be framed. One such 
view is that Paul made two distinct 
voyages from Ephesus, one to Mace- 
donia and the other to Crete ; that 
on the former he wrote the 1st Epis- 
tle to Timothy, and that to Titus 
after his return to Ephesus from the 
latter visit, when he was on the point 
of starting for Nicopolis by way of 
Miletus and Corinth. Other possible 
combinations may be seen in Birks 
(Horoz Apostolico?, at the end of his 
edition of the Horce Paulina?-, pp. 
299-301), and in Wordsworth {Greek 
Test, pt.iii.pp. 418, 421). 



612 Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 

iy young men, who, furnished by Paul with full instructions, 
are to train them for self-government in the coming age, 
when the Apostles shall have departed from the earth. 

The experiment is the more interesting from its being 
made in no quiet times of settled faith and union ; and per- 
haps the difficulties that surrounded it may have been a rea- 
son for the Apostle's withdrawal for a time, to watch from 
a distance the working of his exhortations in other hands. It 
is clear from the First Epistle to Timothy that at Ephesus, 
as formerly at Corinth, there was a factious opposition against 
himself; and, like Lycurgus or Solon, retiring from the re- 
publics where they left their laws to work the more freely, 
Paul might feel that his admonitions would be better felt in 
their own intrinsic force, when worked out by other hands. 

§ 5. The work and difficulties that were thus handed over 
are vividly portrayed in the First Epistle to Timothy. He 
had to rule presbyters, most of whom were older than him- 
self, 22 to assign to each a stipend in proportion to his work, 23 
to receive and decide on charges that might be brought 
against them, 24 to regulate the alms-giving and the sister- 
hoods of the Church, 25 to ordain presbyters and deacons. 26 
There was the risk of being entangled in the disputes, 
prejudices, covetousness, sensuality, of a great city. There 
was the risk of injuring health and strength by an over- 
strained asceticism. 27 Leaders of rival sects were there — 
Hymenaeus, Philetus, Alexander — to oppose and thwart him. 28 
The name of his beloved teacher was no longer honored as it 
had been ; the strong affection of former days had vanished, 
and "Paul the aged" had become unpopular, the object of 
suspicion and dislike. 29 Only in the narrowed circle of the 
faithful few — Aquila, Priscilla, Mark, and others, who were 
still with him — was he likely to find sympathy or support. 30 
We can not wonder that the Apostle, knowing these trials, 
and, with his marvelous power of bearing another's burdens 
and making them his own, should be full of anxiety and fear 
for his disciples' steadfastness ; that admonitions, appeals, 
warnings, should follow each other in rapid and vehement 
succession. 31 

§ 6. It is a deeply interesting question in the early history 



22 1 Tim. iv. 12. 
23 1 Tim. v. 12. 
24 1 Tim. v. 1, 19, 20. 
23 1 Tim. v. 3-10. 
28 1 Tim.iii. 1-13. 
27 1 Tim. iv. 4, v. 23. 



28 1 Tim. i. 20, 2 Tim. ii. 17, iv. 14, 
15. 

29 Comp. Acts xx. 37, and 2 Tim. 
i. 15. 30 2 Tim. iv. 19. 

31 1 Tim. i. 18, iii. 15, iv. 14, v. 21. 
vi. 11. 



A.D. 64 (?). Corruptions of Christianity. 613 

of Christianity, what were the precise evils and errors in the 
Church of Ephesus which moved all this anxiety. The 
answer is furnished by those many allusions which show the 
sad spectacle of new forms of error infecting the Church. 
It is indeed most strange that this should have been turned 
into an argument against the genuineness of the Pastoral 
Epistles, when we trace the rapid spread of Oriental mys- 
ticism and asceticism on the one hand, and of the Alexandrian 
philosoj^hy on the other — among Jews as well as Greeks — as 
seen in the Cabbala and in Philo, and when we have heard 
Paul already denouncing the like mixture of errors in his 
Epistle to the Colossians. 32 It was expressly against new 
forms of error, about to arise among them after his depart- 
ure, that the Apostle had warned the Ephesian Elders at 
Miletus; nor will any one acquainted with the history of 
heresies be surprised that five years were sufficient for their 
development, much less when he sees how many were rife in 
these very Asiatic churches, when St. John wrote to them in 
the Apocalypse. The fatal though seemingly unnatural alli- 
ance had already been contracted between ritualism and 
rationalism, as we now say, or, in the language of that age, 
between Judaism and Gnosticism. " The East and West 
were infusing their several elements of poison into the pure 
cup of Gospel truth. In Asia Minor, as at Alexandria, Hel- 
lenic philosophism did not refuse to blend with Oriental 
theosophy ; the Jewish superstitions of the Cabbala, and the 
wild speculations of the Persian Magi, were combined with 
Greek craving for an enlightened and esoteric religion. The 
outward forms of superstition were ready for the vulgar mul- 
titude; the interpretation toas confined to the aristocracy of 
knoioledge, the self-styled Gnostics" 33 

The simple and sad truth is, that as soon as Christianity 
was generally diffused, it began to absorb corruptions from 

Col. ii. 8-23, where the ^lKogo- 1 sonal opposition to the Apostle, be- 



fla of ver. 8 answers to the yvuaig of 
1 Tim. vi. 20. 

33 1 Tim. vi. 20. Howson, St. Paul, 
vol. ii. p. 548. Baur's objection to 



tween the First and Second Epistles 
to Timothy. In the first, for exam- 
ple, Hymen a?us and Alexander are 
denounced, in general terms, as apes- 



the genuineness of the Pastoral Epis- | tates and blasphemers (1 Tim. i. 20) 
ties, on the ground that the errors | in the second, we see that Alexander's 
denounced belong to the Gnosticism personal opposition to the Apostle 
of Marcion (a century later), is de- / has become still more virulent (2 
cisively answered by the distinctly Tim. iv. 14, 15) ; and Hymenseus is 



Judaistic teaching of the heretics at 
Ephesus. A strong confirmation of 
our view is found in the further de- 
velopment of error, as well as of per- 



associated with a new name, Phile- 
tus, as teachers of the .specific doe* 
trine, that "the resurrection is pass- 
ed already." 



614 Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 

all the countries that it covered, and to reflect the complexion 
of all the religious and philosophic systems to which it was 
opposed. But, in the Apostolic age, the Judaizers are still 
the leaders of the hosts of error, and gather all the rest un- 
der their banner. And this can only seem an anomaly to 
those who confound Judaism with Pharisaism, forgetting the 
Sadducean element ; or who overlook the latitudinarian opin- 
ions of the Hellenists. Side by side with the old Jewish 
spirit of self-righteousness, there had grown up a Jewish lib- 
ertinism, which, satisfying the conscience by insisting on the 
outward forms of the Mosaic Law, embraced the wildest er- 
rors from every quarter of the heathen world. Both forms 
of Judaism soon infected the Christian Church, which — as 
Paul expressly tells us — was corrupted not only by the errors 
of sincere converts, but by false brethren who had crept in 
unawares. The open opponents, who had sacrificed Christ 
for fear of Caesar, were succeeded by feigned disciples, who 
found in Christian liberty an excuse for the dissolution of 
social and political bonds, and the hope of a millenium of 
sensuality and self-will. 

The chief seat of this heresy was in Asia Minor, where the 
Jewish synagogues had been brought into close contact with 
the remnants of Hellenic liberty and the practice of Oriental 
licentiousness. In the remoter provinces of the peninsula, 
where the Oriental element was strongest and the Jews of 
the Dispersion were the most numerous, the heresy assumed 
those grosser forms which are exposed in the Epistles of 
Peter and Jude, and which, as Ave learn from the Apocalypse, 
soon became rampant even in the refined province of Asia. 
But the evil had not as yet reached this height at Ephesus. 
Libertinism of opinion was kept in countenance by ritual- 
istic zeal, and a pretended asceticism had as yet but partially 
given place to its natural successor, libertinism in practice. 
The false teachers of the Pastoral Epistles are predominantly 
Jewish, " claiming to be teachers of the law, not understand- 
ing either what they talk or what they are confident of," 
whose "vain janglings" (/uaraiXoyta) consisted in those "foolish 
questions, fables, endless genealogies, contentions and strivings 
about the law," which formed the mass of Rabbinical learn- 
ing. 34 " The law is good," seems to have been the catch-word 

• S4 1 Tim. i. 4, 6, 7; Titus iii. 9 . ( Anlinomian doctrine. The "fables" 
The wildness of Baur's views is al- | are expressly called " Jewish fables 



most sufficiently exposed by the fact 
that he makes vofj.odidauK.a'Xoi Antino- 
vrian teachers, and the fiax<u vojuinat 



n the Epistle to Titus (i. 14), and 
the false teachers are said to be "es' 
pecially those of the circumcision." 



A.D. 64 (?). 



The Great Apostasy Foretold. 



615 



which they opposed to the doctrine of grace taught by Paul, 
who replies with as keen irony as profound truth, the lavs is 
good if used lawfully, — as a restraint on those crimes of 
which these teachers were ready to be at least tolerant, but 
which he sternly denounces as contrary to sound doctrine, 
" according to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, which 
was committed to my trust." 35 

The combination of Oriental theosophy and reverence for 
intermediate spirits with asceticism, which Paul had already 
opposed in the Colossian Church, he now speaks of as work- 
ing in germs which the Spirit expressly foretold by him were 
to receive a fearful development in " the latter times," as he 
elsewhere calls them, the " last days : " those perilous times 
of which John, Peter and Jude also write, with more special 
reference to their moral enormities. 36 The use of the same 
word, added to the like features, marks this as the Great 
Apostasy of Avhich Paul had long since written to the Thes- 
salonians, 37 where — lest any should suppose that we are con- 
founding prophesies with facts — he expressly says, " The 
mystery of iniquity doth already work." 38 The " last time " 
of conflict between truth and error had, in fact, begun. 
Whatever future development this mystery of Antichrist 
might hereafter assume in positive systems of superstition or 
infidelity, or both combined, 39 its principles were already at 
work. Some had begun to depart from the faith, seduced by 
u erratic spirits " 40 into the belief of " doctrines about in- 



35 1 Tim. i. 8-11. 

36 1 Tim. iv. .1; 2 Tim. iii. 1 ; 2 
Pet. iii. 3; 1 John ii. 18; Jude 18. 
Here also we see the progress of de- 
clension between the First Epistle 
and the Second, in which Paul de- 
nounces that same development of 
the heresy, striking at the foundations 
of morality and social order, which 
Peter and Jude expose. This fact, 
coupled with Peter's allusion to what 
Paul had written of these very 
things (2 Pet. iii. 15), is a most im- 
portant datum for fixing the relation 
between the time and work of the 
two Apostles. 

37 Comp. 2 Thess. ii. 3, rj an oora- 
nia {the falling away, A.V.), with 1 
Tim. iv. 1, air ogtti a ovt zi tivf.c 
rf/c iriGTEug (some shall depart from 
the faith, A.V.). Our Version con- 
ceals the parallel. 



38 2 Thess. i. 7: comp. 1 John ii. 
18, '•'■Even now are there many anti- 
christs, whereby we know that it is 
the last time." 

3<J It may be observed in passing, 
that many writers on the prophecies 
of Paul and John, who have labored 
to show what in these predictions re- 
fers to Popery, and what to Infideli- 
ty, have overlooked the close inter- 
mixture of the two elements of super- 
stition and unbelief, both in the her- 
esies denounced by the Apostle, and 
in the systems in which they seek to 
trace their fulfillment. This para- 
doxical alliance has always existed, 
and always will, for reasons founded 
in human nature itself. 

40 1 Tim. iv. 1. It seems clear that 
the word spirits (Tzvev/iaat irAavo/q} is 
here used in the sense of persons pro- 
Jessing to speak by insj drat ion, as in 1 



616 



Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 



ferior deities " 4I " through the hypocrisy of false teachers 
who had first their own conscience hardened as by a cau- 
tery," 42 and who, as at Colossae, mingled asceticism with their 
mysticism, "forbidding to marry, and enjoining abstinence 
from foods — things which God has ordained to be received 
with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." 
In opposition to all such teaching, the Apostle lays down the 
great principle — "Every creature of God is good, and none 
to be rejected, when taken with thanksgiving : for it is sane 
tified by the word of God and prayer" 4a All these errors 
.are summed up — in opposition to that truth which Paul 
describes as a trust (or deposit) committed to Timothy 44 — as 
" the profane babblings and oppositions of the falsely named 
kriowledge" a word which not only suggests the fearful de- 
velopments of these errors in the Gnosticism of the next 
century, but indicates that the name had already been as- 
sumed. 45 In contrast with this summary of the mysteries of 
error, the Epistle gives us a noble epitome of the Christian 
faith, introduced by words which have been thought to indi- 
cate a passage from a hymn or creed : " And, as is confessed, 



Cor. xii. 10, 1 Thcss. iv. 1, 2 Tbess. 
ii. 2, and especially 1 John iv.. 1-3, 
6, which refers to these very errors. 
The epithet ir'Xavog (literally wander- 
ing) is used for an impostor or deceiver 
in classical Greek and by Josephus, 
as well as in the N. T., Matt, xxvii. 
63, 2 Cor. vi. 8, 2 John 7. Comp. 
the TTVEVfia rfjg Tc'Acivrig of 1 John iv. 
6, and the figure of Jade (13) for the 
false teachers, aarepsg irAav/)rat (i. e., 
comets, or meteors). 

41 didacnaALag daifioviov. 

42 1 Tim. iv. 2, iv vironpiaei ipevdoAo- 
ytov KSKavTTjpiacfiivuv ttjv ISlav owei- 
drjoiv. The difficulties of the com- 
mentators about the genitive are re- 
moved by taking the kv in its frequent 
instrumental sense. 

43 1 Tim. iv. 4, 5 : comp. Titus i. 
15. This rebuke of asceticism throws 
light upon the reason for the intro- 
duction into the Epistle of a matter 
so personal as — " Drink no longer 
water, but use a little wine for thy 
stomach's sake, and thine often in- 
firmities " (\ Tim. v. 23). The con- 
nection of this advice with the warn- 
ings, "Be not partaker of other 



men's sins: keep thyself pure" (v. 
22), and "flee youthful lusts" (2 
Tim. ii. 22), has suggested the opin- 
ion that Timothy, exposed by his sen- 
sitive nature to sensual temptations, 
had been led to asceticism as an an- 
tidote. It deserves special notice how 
earnestly, in both the Epistles, Paul 
admonishes Timothy himself to pre- 
serve that purity and sound doctrine 
which he was to inculcate upon others. 

44 1 Tim. vi. 20, ttjv irapadrjuriv : 
comp. 2 Tim. i. 14, Tit. i. 9, Rev. iii. 
3. 

45 Ibid. rag flefii/Aovg nevo^uviac 
nal avrtOeaeig rfjg ipevdcjvvfiov Tvuce- 
ug. The word avrtdioetg, which oc- 
curs only here, is most naturally in- 
terpreted of the rhetorical refinements 
of the self-styled philosophers. It 
may possibly refer to the dualistic doc- 
trines of good and evil, which were 
imported from the East; but Bnur 
only exposes the rashness of the Tu- 
bingen school, when he finds in the 
word an allusion to the 'Avridtaeig or 
Contraries Oppositiones (Contrnsts be- 
tween the Law and Gospel; of Mar* 
cion. 



A.D 61 (?). Heresy Denounced. 617 

great is the mystery of godliness [or religion] : God was 
manifested in the flesh ; justified by the spirit ; seen of an- 
gels ; preached among the Gentiles ; believed on in the world ; 
received up into glory ; " and he points to the Church as the 
pillar and foundation laid on earth for the support of this 
doctrine. 46 

Another significant link between this and the next age of 
the Church, as to the growing sharpness of the conflict with er- 
ror, is seen in the fact that the Apostle, who had written to the 
Corinthians so tenderly, though firmly, of an arch-offender, 
now first brands opponents by name ; and, though his injunc- 
tions to deal firmly with the offense are not plainer than be- 
fore, he speaks with more severity of the offenders, as men 
who, " having put away a good conscience, have made ship- 
wreck concerning faith, of whom is Hymenceus and Alexander, 
whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to 
blaspheme." 47 The Epistle to Titus enjoins the like firmness 
in dealing with heretics, a word which here first occurs in its 
common ecclesiastical sense.™ 

§ 7. When we pass to the Second Epistle to Timothy, we 
learn what was the precise heresy thus denounced, and now 
in terms of increased severity. For the " profane and vain 
babblings" had themselves "increased unto more ungodli- 
ness," 49 and their word was beginning " to devour like a can- 
cer : of whom are Hymenceus and JPhiletus, who concerning 
the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection has taken 
place already." 50 The denial of a resurrection of the body was 
no new error in the Church ; but was the natural result of Sad- 
ducean corruption. The famous argument of the Apostle seems 
to imply that in the Church of Corinth it did not go beyond the 
simple negation — " that there is no resurrection of the dead" 51 
But these pretenders to a higher spiritual philosophy than the 
Gospel held that it was already accomplished / no doubt in 
the sense soon after taught by the Gnostics, that the only Res- 
urrection was the rising of the soul from the death of igno- 
rance to the life and light of knowledge. 52 

Nor is the transition less marked to a more severe denunci- 



45 1 Tim. iii. 15, 16. i Bat see Notes and Illustrations, on 

47 1 Tim. i. 19, 20. The 7rapiS(uKa "Hymenceus and his Heresy." 
rtfi Sarava is the very phrase used in 48 Tit. iii. 10. 
1 Cor. v. 5. It is regarded by somej 49 2 Tim. ii. 16 : comp. 1 Tim. vi, 
as a Jewish formula of excommuni- 20. B0 2 Tim. ii. 17-18. 

cation, referring to Satan as thej 51 1 Cor. xv. 

prince of the v;orld, into which thei 62 See Notes and Illustrations, "Hy- 
offender was cast out of the Church. < rneneeus and his Heresy." 



613 



Last Days of St. Paid and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 



ation of moral corruption. The chief evil rebuked in the 
First Epistle is that love of riches which was a natural corrup- 
tion in the wealthy province of Asia, and which gave occasion 
to Paul's magnificent homily on their true use. 68 But now he 
draws a picture of sensual vice, and self-willed rebellion 
against the first laws of social order, precisely parallel to the 
description of Peter and Jude. 54 And a comparison of the 
Epistle to Titus with the First to Timothy proves that this 
class of evils had made more rapid progress among the coarser 
Dorians of Crete, whose character the Apostle describes by a 
rerse of their own pet poet Epimenides — 

Kpf/T ael ipsvorai, /ca/cd dqpia, yacrepie apyai. 
"Always liars are the Cretans, evii beasts and natures slow." 56 

In this Epistle, as in the First to Timothy, Paul sums up the 
principles opposed to those errors in a formula of truth ; 56 which 
he finally condenses, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, into a 
twofold motto, fit to be inscribed on the two faces of that 
base on which the Church was reared as the pillar of the 
truth — the one looking toward heaven, and the other toward 
earth : — " Nevertheless the foundation of God stand eth sure, 
having this seal — 

" The Lord knoweth them that are his. And : 
" Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart 
from iniquity." 57 

§ 8. At what stage of Paul's journey westward these 
Epistles 58 were dispatched, is altogether uncertain. Mr. Lew- 
in thinks from Corinth, which the Apostle, traveling by way of 
the Isthmus, would visit on his way to Nicopolis, and where he 
would be likely to make a considerable stay. The direction 
of his journey is fixed by his determination to winter at Ni- 
copolis, at least if it is rightly assumed that he means Nicop- 



53 1 Tim. vi. 5-10, 17-19. 

54 2 Tim. iii. 1-9. 

55 Tit. i. 12. The quotation, and 
the Apostle's testimony to its truth 

J(ver. 13), derive the greater force 
•from the oracular character attributed 
to the verses of Epimenides, whom 
Paul therefore calls, with a touch of 
irony, a prophet. He was a native 
of Crete, and lived in the 6th centu- 
ry b.c. The context shows the vehe- 
ment severity with which Paul de- 
nounces the false teachers at Crete. 



They seem to have been more dis- 
tinctively Jewish than those of Asia, 
as might be expected from our hav- 
ing no account of the evangelization 
of the island, except what may be 
inferred from the presence of Cretans 
at Jerusalem on the great day of 
Pentecost. 

56 Tit. ii. 11-14. 

57 2 Tim. ii. 19. 

58 The First to Timothy and that 
to Titus. The Second to Timothy 
was later, and written from Rome. 



A.D. 64 (?). 



Paul at Nicopolis. 



619 



olis in Epirus ; and the importance of his visit to this city 
may be inferred from his direction to Titus to join him 
there, with Zenas the lawyer and Apollos, in case he should 
send for him. 59 

The winter spent by Paul at Nicopolis closed a year marked 
by great events, which were destined to hasten both his own 
end and his country's (a.d. 64). 60 Cestius Gallus became 
prefect of Syria, and Albinus was succeeded in the procura- 
torship of Judaea by Gessius Florus, who in less than two 
years provoked the Jewish war, the portents of which were 
clearer in the sufferings that grew intolerable on the land, 
than in the comet that blazed in the sky at the end of the 
year. Meanwhile a great part of Rome was laid in ruins by 
the fire that broke out on the anniversary of the burning of 
the city by the Gauls, and raged nine days. 61 While Nero 



59 Tit. iii. 12. The subscription 
to the Epistle assumes that the Apos- 
tle was at Nicopolis when he wrote ; 
but we can not conclude this from 
the form of expression. We should 
rather infer that he was elsewhere, 
possibly at Ephesus or Corinth. He 
urges that no time should be lost 
(crrrovdaoov eAdelv) ; hence we con- 
clude that winter was near. 

Nothing is to be found in the 
Epistle itself to determine which Ni- 
copolis is here intended. There were 
cities of this name in Asia, Africa, 
and Europe. One Nicopolis was in 
Thrace, near the borders of Mac- 
edonia. The subscription (which, 
however, is of no authority) fixes on 
this place, calling it the Macedonian 
Nicopolis : and such is the view of 
Chrysostom and Theodoret. De 
Wette's objection to this opinion 
(Pastoral Brief e, p. 21), that the place 
did not exist till Trajan's reign, ap- 
pears to be a mistake. Another Ni- 
copolis was in Cilicia ; and Schrader 
[Der Apostel Paulus, i. pp. 115-119) 
pronounces for this ; but this opinion 
is connected with a peculiar theory 
regarding the Apostle's journeys. 
We have little doubt that Jerome's 
view is correct, and that the Pauline 
Nicopolis was the celebrated city of 
Epirus ("scribit Apostolus deNicop- 
oli, quas in Actiaco littore sita," 
Hieron. Procem. ix 195). 



This city (the "City of Victory") 
was built by Augustus in memory of 
the battle of Actium, and on the 
ground which his army occupied be- 
fore the engagement. It is a curious 
| and interesting circumstance, when 
we look at the matter from a Biblical 
point of view, that many of the hand- 
somest parts of the town were built 
by Herod the Great (Joseph. Ant. 
xvi. 5, § 3). It is likely enough that 
many Jews lived there. Moreover, 
it was conveniently situated for apos- 
tolic journeys in the eastern parts of 
Achaia and Macedonia, and also to 
the northward, where churches per- 
haps were founded. St. Paul had 
long before preached the Gospel at 
least on the confines of Illyricum 
(Rom. xv. 19), and soon after the 
very period under consideration Titus 
himself was sent on a mission to Dal- 
matia (2 Tim. iv. 10). 

Nicopolis was on a peninsula to the 
west of the bay of Actium, in a low 
and unhealthy situation, and it is now 
a very desolate place. 

60 This was the year in which the 
historian Josephus went to Rome, at 
the age of 26, and on his voyage suf- 
fered his shipwreck in Adria, which 
so strikingly resembles that of St. 
Paul. 

61 First for six days (July 19-24), 
and then, after an interval of ?ix 
days, for three days more. 



620 Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX 

took possession of a large part of the space thus cleared (as 
some said, by his own contrivance) for the erection of his im- 
mense palace, called the Golden House, he satiated the public 
indignation, to use the words of Tacitus, 62 by " casting the 
charge of the crime and visiting it with exquisite tortures 
upon those whom, already hated for their wickedness, the peo- 
ple called Christians. This name was derived from one 
Christus, who was executed in the reign of Tiberius by the 
procurator of Judrea, Pontius Pilate; and this accursed su- 
perstition, for a moment repressed, broke forth again, not only 
through Judaea, the source of the evil, but even through the 
City, whither all things outrageous and shameful now together, 
and find many adherents. Accordingly those were first ar- 
rested who confessed, 03 afterward a vast number upon their 
information, who were convicted not so much on the charge 
of causing the fire as for their hatred to the human race. To 
their execution were added mockeries such as these: they 
were wrapped in the skins of wild* beasts and torn in pieces 
by dogs, or crucified, or set on fire and burned, when day-light 
ended, as torches to light up the night. Nero lent his own 
gardens for the spectacle, and gave a chariot race at which 
he mingled freely with the multitude in the garb of a 
driver, or mounted on his chariot. As the result of all, a feel- 
ing of compassion arose for the sufferers, though guilty and 
deserving of condign punishment, on the ground that they 
were destroyed, not for the common good, but to gratify the 
cruelty of one man." 

Mournful as it is to hear the great historian venting upon the 
Christians the same prejudices that we have seen him uttering 
against the Jews, 64 it may be that evils such as we have seen 
Paul rebuking at Ephesus had given a pretext for his charges 
against some who bore the Christian name. Nor should 
it be overlooked that his historical testimony to the death of 
Christ, at the time and manner related in the Gospels, is the 
more valuable for the very scorn that he shows toward the 
Christians. It was while these events were taking place at 
Rome that the Temple at Jerusalem was at length completed, 
more than 80 years after its commencement by Herod, and only 
five before its final destruction. The discharge of the workmen 
employed upon the edifice added to the seething materials of 
the coming eruption. 

To what extent the cruelties against the Christians at 

62 Tac. Ann. xv. 44. — 63 That is that they were Christians, not that they 
burned the city, as is clear from the rest of the sentence. — 64 Hist. v. 8 \ see 
above, p. 29. 



A.D. 64-5. 



The Neronian Persecution, 



621 



Rome were followed up throughout the empire by what ec- 
clesiastical historians call the First General Persecution^ is 
a disputed point ; but we have sufficient evidence that now 
the chief leaders of the Christians became obnoxious to the 
Roman government. The martyrdoms both of Paul and 
Peter, whatever their precise date, may certainly be referred 
to this new hostile movement ; and Clement of Rome, an au- 
thority almost contemporary, tells us that their fate was 
shared by "a great multitude of the elect, who, suffering 
many insults and torments through the envy of their ad* 
versaries, left the most glorious example among us." 66 

§ 8. It is supposed by some that St. Paul was now arrest- 
ed at ISTicopolis, and thence carried a prisoner to Rome ; but 
the allusions in the Second Epistle to Timothy seem, as we 
shall see presently, scarcely consistent with any hypothesis 
but that of a recent departure from Ephesus, under circum- 
stances of sorrow that had arisen after the date of the Epistle 
to Titus. Besides, Paul's return to Ephesus is just what we 
should expect from the intentions expressed in the First 
Epistle to Timothy. If, then, he returned, was it at such a 
time as to fulfill his hope of " coming shortly," or the other 
alternative, "if I tarry long?" and, in the latter case, what 
was the cause of the delay? and was it connected with the 
motive that carried him to Nicopolis, a station where his face 
was once more turned toward the Western division of the 
Empire ? 

These questions are connected with that most obscure Vmt 



65 There are usually reckoned Ten 
Persecutions of the Church by the 
Emperors: • (1) Under Nero, begin- 
ning a.d. 64; (2) under Domitian. 
a.d. 95 ; (3) under Trajan, a.d. 106 ; 

(4) under Marcus Aurelius, a.d. 166 ; 

(5) under Severus, a.d. 202 ; (6) un- 
der Maximin, a.d. 235; (7) under 
Decius, a.d. 250 ; (8) under Valerian, 
a.d. 258 ; (9) under Aurelian, a.d. 
275 ; (10) under Diocletian and Maxi- 
vdan, a.d. 303. 

68 Epist. ad Corinth. 5. Clemens 
Komanus, the earliest of the "Apos- 
tolic Fathers " — that is those who are 
believed to have had intercourse with 
the Apostles themselves — lived about 
the end of the first century, and is 
supposed by some to- be the Clement 
mentioned in Phil. iv. 3. The only 
genuine work extant under his name 



is his First Epistle to the Corinthians 
in Greek. Eusebius says : "Nero ad 
csetera scelera persecutionem quoque 
Chris tianorum primus adjunxit, sub 
quo Petrus et Paul us Apostoli Mar- 
tyrium Romse consummaverunt ' 
{Chron. Arm. s. a. Neronis XIII. 
01. 211. 4, Ann. Ab. 2083, i. e., a.d. 
67-68. See further on the date, p. 
632). Orosius and Lanctantius bear 
still more direct testimony to a gene- 
ral persecution by Nero ; and Sulpi- 
cius Severus says that the Christian 
religion was forbidden by laws and 
public edicts, adding, that, while these 
things were done at Rome, the Jews be- 
gan their rebellion, provoked by the 
outrages of Gessius Florus. This 
statement, however, need not refer to 
the very first outbreak of the Jewish 
war in a.d. 66. 



622 



Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 



deeply interesting problem in the Apostle's life, his alleged 
journey to the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, and 
in particular to Spain. We have seen him informing the 
Church at Rome of such an intention, as one of the motives 
that impelled him to visit the capital. 67 Now, besides the 
general argument, previously referred to, that the mere state- 
ment of an intention can not of itself be evidence of its ful- 
fillment, we know, in this case, that the plan was not executed 
at the time and in the manner contemplated by the Apostle. 
That deliberate and steadfast character of his plans, on which 
he himself lays so much stress, suggests a presumption that 
he would ultimately execute this design if the opportunity 
ever came; but, on the other hand, the same presumption 
may he the only basis for the ecclesiastical tradition, which at 
first sight appears to furnish independent evidence. 68 There 
is another presumption, but purely negative, from the inter- 
nal evidence of Scripture, compared with the date of the 
Apostle's martyrdom. If the latest date of a.d. 67-8 be ac- 
cepted, we have an interval of four or five years from the end 
of his first imprisonment to his death, a period which the 
movements referred to in the Pastoral Epistles are insuffi- 
cient to fill up. It is inferred that this gap may be supplied 
by the journey to the West, either before or after the writing 
of the First Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus. 
The former alternative is usually preferred, in order to bring 
the Pastoral Epistles close together ; while the latter suggests 
a motive for the wintering at Nicopolis. Another indirect 
argument is found in the greater safety which the Western 
Provinces, then, under the government of distinguished men 
who chafed under the tyranny of Nero (Galba and Yindex), 
would afford to the Apostle during the Neronian persecution, 
while he was prosecuting his cherished purpose of evangeliz^ 
ing those regions. 

It remains to see what positive evidence we have for the 
general belief of antiquity, that Paul visited the West. The 
first writer quoted in support of the journey to Spain is one 
whose evidence would indeed be irresistible, if the language 
in which it is expressed were less obscure. Clement of 
Rome, in a hortatory and rather rhetorical passage, refers to 
St. Paul as an example of patience, and mentions that he 
preached " both in the East and in the West," and that be- 



67 Rom. xv. 24-28. 

68 This suspicion is the more nat- 
ural, as the tradition mentions only 



Spain, and not the parts of Gaul 
about Massilia, where we find Chris- 
tianity flourishing in the 2d century- 






A.D. 65 (?). 



1—7 

Traditional Journey to Spain. 



623 



fore his martyrdom he went "to the goal of the West," 69 
which may describe either Spain or some more distant coun- 
try. 70 Another testimony, which mentions less ambiguously 
a "profectionem Pauli ab urbe hi Spaniam proficiseentis" 
is doubtful through the imperfection of the text. 71 Chrysos- 
tom says that after Paul had been in Home, he again depart- 
ed to Spain; 72 and Jerome speaks of the Apostle as set free 
by Nero that he might preach the Gospel of Christ " in the 
parts of the West." 73 It is worthy of notice that all these testi- 
monies make the visit to Spain an immediate consequence of the 
Apostle's liberation. Ewald, who denies the genuineness of 
the Pastoral Epistles, and therefore rejects the journeyings 
in Greece and Asia Minor, yields to the testimony of tradi- 
tion in favor of the journey to Spain. 

§ 10. Returning from this doubtful ground, we come to 
the evidence furnished by the Second Epistle to Timothy to 
the last stage of the Apostle's course. The main fact, that he 
was now a prisoner at Rome, with a certain and immediate 
prospect of his martyrdom, admits of no doubt to those who 
receive the Epistle as genuine ; 74 nor are indications wanting 



69 JEpist. I. ad Cor. 5 : ev re ry ava- 

ToTlTJ KCU EV TTJ 6vG£L . . . £7Tl TO Tkpfld 

rrjq dvceoq. The omission of any spe- 
cific mention of Spain is very suspi- 
cious. Nay, the connection of the 
passage with the account of Paul's 
martyrdom suggests that, after all, 
the rep/ia ttjq dvaecog may simply mark 
Rome as the Western goal of Paul's 
labors, having reached which, "and 
borne his testimony before the rulers, 
he was released from life." (See 
below, § 13.) 

70 For the tradition that St. Paul 
preached in Britain there is no known 
evidence beyond conjecture; but it 
may be convenient here to notice the 
evidence for the early evangelization 
of the British islands, which is often 
confounded with the introduction of 
Christianity among the Saxons by 
Augustine'in a.d. 597. But these 
heathen conquerors, in their extirpa- 
tion of Roman civilization, had over- 
whelmed an earlier British church, 
of whose existence we have evidence 
in the attendance of its bishops at 
councils, in the death of its proto- 
martyr St. Alban in Diocletian's per- 



secution, and in the origin of the 
Pelagian heresy in Britain ; to say 
nothing of the Christian king Lucius, 
who is alleged to have sent an em- 
bassy to Eleutherus, the bishop of 
Rome, in the time of the Antonines. 
After giving, however, the greatest 
reasonable weight to this evidence, 
we have no positive indications of 
the evangelization of Britain before 
a somewhat advanced period in the 
second century. 

71 Muratori's Fragment on the Can- 
on, ap. Routh, Reliq. Sac. vol. iv. pp. 
1-12. The passage is fully discussed 
by Alford, Greek Test. vol. iii. p. 93. 

72 On 2 Tim. iv. 20 : Mera to ye- 
veodai hv 'Vojiy, TtdTitv etc ryv 'Lnaviav 
airfjAdev. 

73 Cat. Script. Eccles. s. v. Paulus : 
" in Occidentis quoque partibus." 

74 2 Tim. i. 8, 12, 16, ii. 9-13, iv. 
6-8, 16-18. For the place, iv. 17 is 
decisive. For a discussion of the ex- 
travagant hypothesis, that the Epistle 
was written during the First Impris- 
onment at Rome, and before the other 
two Pastoral Epistles, see Diet, of 
Bible, art. Timothy, Epistles to. 



624 



Last Days of St. P ml end St. Pem Chap. XIX 



of the steps that had led him to this his last imprisonment 
The alhisions to various details, personal as well as public, 
bear all the impress of what is recent. One of these seems to 
prove that Titus had joined him at Nicopolis, as Paul had 
wished, and had been sent into the neighboring region of 
Dalmatia; 75 and we gather from others that the Apostle had 
'ecently been at Corinth, 76 at Troas, 77 at Miletus, 78 and at 
Ephesus, where he had been subjected to the bitter trial of a 
general desertion on the part of the Asiatic Christians, under 
two leaders, whose names now first appear — Phygellus and 
.Kermogenes — but where he had been ministered to by Onesi- 
phorus, the same devoted disciple who, regardless of disgrace 
and danger, had diligently sought him out at Rome. 79 Last- 
ly, those tears of Timothy, the tender recollection of which 
the Apostle carried into his person, 80 not only point — as all 
agree — to a recent separation, but to such a scene as must 
have taken place if Timothy saw his father in the faith drag- 
ged away from Ephesus as a prisoner ; such a scene as had 
formerly been witnessed at Paul's parting from the Elders 
of Ephesus, 81 and again at Caesarea, when he seemed to be 
advancing to a martyr's death at Jerusalem. 82 

These indications tend to confirm the theory that St. Paul 
was arrested at Ephesus during the Neronian persecution; 
a cause to which we may refer the desertion of the Asiatics. 
Indeed the later treatment of the Apostle by this church is in 
striking agreement with the remonstrance of St. John, "Be- 
cause thou hast left thy first love." 83 There remains one in- 



The following is one of those indica- 
tions from minute facts, which are 
peculiarly satisfactory. "Erastus 
ahode at Corinth, but Trophimus I 
left at Miletus sick " (2 Tim. iv. 20). 
On the voyage preceding Paul's im- 
prisonment Trophimus was not left 
at Miletus, but went on with him to 
Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 29); and as- 
suredly the ship, when blown off from 
Cnidus to Crete, did not put him 
ashore at Miletus (Acts xxvii. 5, 6). 
And Erastus, instead of "remaining 
at Corinth," left that city with the 
Apostle (Acts xx. 4). 

75 2 Tim. iv. 10. It is not neces- 
sary to suppose that Titus had been 
sent from home ; for his mission is 
only mentioned to account for his 
absence. 

76 2 Tim. iv. 20. 



77 2 Tim. iv. 13. 

78 2 Tim. iv. 20. 

79 2 Tim. i. 15-18. The sugges- 
tion that the allusion to Onesiphorus 
is a reminiscence of a former period, 
and that his ministrations at Rome 
were antecedent to those at Ephesus, 
and consequently refer to the first im- 
prisonment, seems to us opposed to 
the general tone of these allusions, 
and especially to the fact that the 
blessing invoked on Onesiphorus and 
his household for these proofs of his 
fearless attachment follows immedi- 
ately upon the complaint of the de- 
sertion of the Asiatics. 

80 2 Tim. i. 4. 

81 Acts xx. 37. 

82 Acts xxi. 13. 

83 Rev. ii. 4. The other charac- 
teristics of works, labor and patience 






A.D. 66 (?). St PauVs Last Imprisonment. 625 

dication, which has been generally overlooked, of the very 
circumstances that led to St. Paul's arrest. The sentence — 
" Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil : the Lord re- 
ward him according to his works ! " — has suggested painful 
feelings to many a reader, which assuredly would not be 
soothed by the belief that it is the utterance of resentment 
for the part taken by Alexander in the riot at Ephesus some' 
ten years before ! 84 But the passage appears in a very dif- 
ferent light in the version of Dr. Howson : " Alexander the 
brass-founder charged me icith much evil in his declara- 
tion; the Lord shall reward him according to his works ! " 85 
Whether we suppose the Alexander whom the Jews put for- 
ward to make his defense to the Ephesians at the great riot 
to have been a Jew or a Christian, 86 we are not surprised to 
meet him again as a Judaizing teacher in the Church; nor 
that, in revenge for his excommunication, 87 he should have 
laid an information against Paul during the great Neronian 
persecution ; for in all such proceedings informers were nu- 
merous and busy. That Alexander was now at Ephesus 
seems clear from the charge to Timothy, " Of whom be thou 
ware also." 88 It is of little consequence to inquire whether 
the allusions to the Apostle's touching at Troas, where he left 
with Carpus the books and parchments, with the traveling- 
case, which he desires Timothy to bring with him ; 89 at 



for Christ's name's sake, under great 
temptations to faint, of a conflict with 
wicked men and false Apostles, whom 
the Church tried and rejected, and 
with a specific heresy — that of the 
Nicolaitans — which they abhorred, 
all agree with the Church of Ephe- 
sus, partly such as it is depicted in 
Paul's life, and partly such as it might 
become as the result of the Apostle's 
admonitions and the labors of Timo- 
thy. 

84 2 Tim. iv. 14, 15. 

M There can be no difficulty in tak- 
ing the phrase tco?.?A jjlol /ca/cd svedei- 
£aro in the sense of a judicial declara- 
tion, which is that of the Active voice 
in Classical Greek. In the latter 
clause the best MSS. and Versions 
vary greatly, and there are obvious 
reasons why a7rod6?j may have been 
altered into cnroScoaec. Nor need we 
l>e staggered at the Apostle's use of 
language which is not only habitual 
in the inspired utterances of David 
Bb 



(2 Sam. iii. 39; Ps. xxviii. 4, lxii. 
12, etc.), but is adopted by the very 
angels of God (Kev. xviii. 6). On 
thispointan immense amount of need- 
less difficulty has been raised by con- 
founding the utterance of selfish ma- 
lignity and revenge with the solemn 
reference of wrong-doing to the judg- 
ment of the God of truth. 

86 Acts xix. 33. Considering the 
commonness of the name, it is im= 
possible to affirm with certainty that 
the Alexander of the Acts and of/, 
and 77. Timothy was one and the 
same person ; but there can be lit- 
tle doubt of his identity in the two 
latter passages, especially from the 
phrase "he hath greatly withstood 
our words." 

87 1 Tim. i. 20. 

88 2 Tim. ii. 15. 

89 2 Tim. iv. 13. (pelovri, which 
means either a cloak or case, seems 
here to be the case that held the 
books so valued by the Apostle. Tt 



626 



Last Days of St Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 



Miletus, where he left Trophimus sick ; and at Corinth, where 
Erastus stayed behind ; 90 whether these refer severally to the 
journey by which he reached Ephesus, or to his voyage 
thence to Rome as a prisoner. It seems natural that this 
voyage should have been by way of Corinth and across the 
Isthmus, as the shortest route, and its commencement might 
have been either from Ephesus itself, or from Miletus, or from 
Troas, as the ship happened to be sailing. 91 

§ 11. If we are right in referring these allusions to re= 
cent events, it will follow that no long interval elapsed from 
Paul's arrival at Rome to his writing the Epistle. We have 
one mark of its date in the fact that there was time left, after 
its transmission to Ephesus, for Timothy to make the journey 
thence and reach Rome before winter, by using diligence. 92 
Meanwhile, accused no longer merely about questions of the 
law, but as a common malefactor (for so the Christians were 
regarded in the N~eronian persecution) — with no Julius to rec- 
ommend and no Burrus to protect him — Paul's state may be 
inferred from the words, feebly rendered in our version, 
" wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil-doer (or felon), even unto 
bonds " 93 — bonds more like those at Philippi than his former 
chain at Rome. But even now, as well as then, he could add, 
" but the word of God is not bound ; " 94 and the converts, 
whose names appear for the first time in this Epistle — Eubu- 
lus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia — derive a special lustre from 
their profession being made amid such dangers, and from its 
contrast to the falling away of older friends. 95 The Apostle 



has been ingeniously conjectured that 
these wex-e the Scriptures, and that 
the "parchments" so specially de- 
sired were some of the recent 
writings, now included in the New 
Testament. It may be observed 
what peculiar stress the Apostle lays, 
in the Epistle to Timothy, on the 
reading of the Holy Scriptures, 
"which are able to make wise unto 
salvation, through faith which is in 
Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. iv. 13, 2 Tim. 
iii. 14-17). 

90 2 Tim. iv. 20. 

91 Mr. Lewin supposes that Paul, 
after spending the winter of a.d. 64- 
65 at Nicopolis, traveled by way of 
Macedonia and Troas to Ephesus, 
and was arrested there toward the 
end of the year ; and that he sailed 
from Ephesus, touching at Miletus, 



to Corinth, crossing the Isthmus, 
which was the usual winter route 
from Asia to Italy. Thus he would 
arrive at Rome earlv in a.d. 66. 

92 2 Tim. iv. 9, 2 1. 

93 2Tim. ii. 9, iv o) /canon ado) 
fi£XP L deafJ-uv <jc Kcinovpy og. This 
is confirmed by the repeated allusions 
to the element of shame in his suffer- 
ings (2 Tim. i. 8,12, 16). 

C4 2 Tim. ii. 9: comp. Acts xxviii. 
31, Eph. vi. 19, 20. 

95 2 Tim. iv. 21. The names of 
Claudia and Pudens have given rise 
to conjectures peculiarly interesting 
to Christians of our own land. There 
is reason for supposing that this Clau- 
dia was a British maiden, daughter 
of King Cogidubnus, an ally of 
Rome (Tacit. Agricol. 14), who took 
the name of his imperial patron, Ti- 



A.D. GG (?). 



PauVs First Hearing. 



627 



seems gratefully to acknowledge that his apparently certain 
fate had been postponed by God's special providence, express- 
ly to give him new opportunities of proclaiming the Gospel. 96 
In so simple a case as Paul's must now have seemed, there 
would be no reason to delay his trial, Avhich might seem in- 
deed a mere form, when Rome rang with the cry Christianos 
ad leones. But still the forms of Roman justice gave the in- 
nocent some shelter. We may assume that Paul established 
his right as a Roman citizen to be heard in his own defense ; 97 
and, as this is called his first, it would seem that his case was 
regulated by Nero's rule, of giving a separate hearing to each 
count in the indictment. In spite of the virulence of his ac- 
cusers, probably including Alexander 98 — perhaps even because 
they overreached themselves — either this count broke down 
or the hearing was adjourned. The Apostle's own account of 
the trial is poured out from the fullness of his heart, in terms 

in which the contents of the two 
works first mentioned are embodied 
in a summary form. 

96 2 Tim. iv. 16, 17. The whole 
connection of this passage makes it 
impossible to explain the TrpcjTq a~ol~ 
oyia of Paul's former acquittal at 
Rome; and ver. 17, which has been 
applied to his evangelic labors in the 
interval, clearly means that he had 
been so strengthened to speak out the 
truth upon his trial, as to make a 
deep impression on all who heard 
him, a last appearance in court well 
worthy of the Apostle, as the word 
irJ.rjpofyopTjdy itself implies. 

97 '~Ev t>] Trpury fiov a~o?.oyia, 2 
Tim. iv. 16. 

98 2 Tim. iv. 15. The words Xiav 
yaf avdearrjKE rolg r/fierepoig Aoyoic, 
though they may only denote oppo- 
sition to Paul's teaching at Ephesus, 
may just as well refer to vehement 
contention against him on his trial. 
Indeed,, if we rightly infer from 
verse 14 that the charge was made 
by Alexander, it follows, according 
to the rules of procedure, that he 
sustained it in person at Rome. He 
had perhaps returned to Ephesus, 
when Paul wrote, to collect further 
evidence, and, as Paul had reason 
to believe, with the design of prefer- 
ring a charge against Timothy (ver 
15). 



berius Claudius. She appears to 
have become the wife of Pudens, who 
is mentioned in the same verse. 
(See Martial, lib. iv. Epigr. 13.) 
This Pudens, we gather from an in- 
scription found at Chichester, and 
now in the gardens at Goodwood, 
was at one time in close connection 
with King Cogidubnus, and gave an 
area for a temple of Neptune and 
Minerva, which was built by that 
king's authority. And Claudia is 
said in Martial (xi. 53) to have been 
ccernkis Britannis edita. Moreover, 
she is there also called Rvfina. Now 
Pomponia, wife of the late com- 
mander in Britain, Aulus Plautius, 
under whom Claudia's father was re- 
ceived into alliance, belonged to a 
house of which the Run" were one of 
the chief branches. If she herself 
were &Rufa, and Claudia hex protegee, 
the latter might well be called Rufi- 
na ; and we know that Pomponia 
was tried as superstitionis cxteimce, rea 
in the year 57, Tacit. Ann. xii. 32; 
so that there are many circumstances 
concurrent, tending to give verisimil- 
itude to the conjecture. See Arch- 
deacon Williams's pamphlet ' ' On Pu- 
dens and Claudia ;" an article in the 
Quarterly Review for July, 1858, en- 
titled "The Romans at Colchester ; " 
and an Excursus in Alford's Greek 
Testament, vol. iii. Prolegg. p. 104, 



628 Lust Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 

less calculated to gratify the curious than to impress the de- 
vout. "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all 
forsook me — may it not be reckoned to them ! But the Lord 
stood by me, and strengthened me, that through me the 
preaching might be accomplished and all the Gentiles might 
hear : and I was delivered from the mouth of the lio?i." 99 Is 
this merely a proverbial expression ? Or does it refer to the 
lions of the amphitheatre ? or to the mighty monster, who now 
well deserved to be described by the same figure which Peter 
applies to the arch-enemy, and which is often used in Scripture 
for fierce and malignant foes. 100 The sense of fitness might well 
make us content with the last interpretation ; but that there 
hangs upon it the other question, whether Paul was heard by 
ISTero in person. If the affirmative be chosen, this first trial 
must have taken place before Nero's departure for Greece in 
the spring of a.d. 66, which seems the earliest date that can 
be assigned to it. Then comes the question, what interval is 
to be allowed between this first trial and the Apostle's martyr- 
dom? For this we have no decisive data. While the tone 
of the Epistle denotes Paul's certain expectation of the issue, 
his urgency for Timothy to come before winter implies the 
probability of considerable delay. It must be left undecided 
whether Nero passed sentence on the Apostle before depart- 
ing for Greece, or whether Paul received the martyr's crown 
while that of Olympia was bestowed by flattery on the 
prince ; and whether he was executed with or without anoth- 
er trial. 101 

§ 1 2. The interval, whether longer or shorter, exhibits the 
Apostle to us in one of the most interesting aspects of his 
life, as " a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on 
Christ to life everlasting." Deeply feeling, as we have seen, 
the pain and indignity of his bonds, he was still more deeply 
tried by a sense of loneliness. Crescens and Titus had been 
sent on missions to Galatia and Dalmatia ; Tychicus was the 
bearer of the Epistle to Timothy ; and, when there remained 
with him only Luke and Demas, the latter forsook him, " hav- 
ing lovjd the present world," and departed for Thessaloni- 
ca.' 02 llut there was another who had repented of his for> 



09 2 Tim. iv. 16, 17. 

100 1 Pet. v. 8 : comp. Ps. vii. 2, 
xxii. 21, lvii. 4. 

101 If we adopt the traditional date of 
June 29th, and also the tradition that 
Paul suffered under Nero, the date of 
a.d. 68 is clearly too late ; since Nero's i 



own death took place on June 9:h of 
that year. 102 2 Tim. iv. 9-11. 

"Look in, and see Christ's chosen saint 
In triumph wear his Christ-like chain ; 
No fear lest he should swerve or faint ; 
l His life is Christ, his death is gain.'* 



A.D. 6G. 



Admonishes Timothy. 



629 



mer desertion ; and Paul now desires the ministry of Mark, 103 
while he looks to Timothy above all for his remaining com- 
fort upon earth. 

There seems to be a deej)er meaning than has usually been 
observed in these repeated and urgent invitations to Timothy. 
If any one should be tempted to discover an element of self- 
ishness in the willingness of Paul to expose so attached a 
friend to the dangers of Rome, we will not say merely that 
the peril was probably equally great at Ephesus — especially 
from the machinations of Alexander — but that Paul seems to 
invite Timothy to Rome expressly to confront its dangers. 
" His own son in the faith " had not only to render the last 
ministrations to a father, and to receive that father's last 
counsels; but to see him "finish his course with joy," that 
he might " arm himself with the like mind." There comes 
to all a time when the chief work of life is to prepare 
for death ; and it seems most probable that Timothy would 
not long survive the blow aimed at Paul, or at least that he 
would be in constant danger of martyrdom from a popular 
tumult or a new outbreak of persecution. 104 An attentive 
reader will observe how closely the admonitions to make full 
proof of his ministry are connected with exhortations to en- 
dure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ ; and how 
the glorious principles which sustained the Apostle in the 

till he died a martyr's death tinder 
Domitian or Nerva. He protested, 
it is said, against the license and 
frenzy of the festival of Artemis ; 
and the infuriated mob put him to 
death with clubs (Euseb. H. E. iii. 
H; Niceph. H. E. iii. 11). But, 
besides the little dependence to be 
placed on these accounts, the story 
comes into collision, not only with 
the traditions about St. John's rela- 
tions to the Church of Ephesus, but 
with the evidence of the Apocalypse 
itself. That Timothy should have 
remained bishop of the Church at 
Ephesus without any allusion to his 
name in the Epistle to that Church 
(to say nothing of John's General 
Epistle) seems almost as incredible 
as the wild hypothesis that he was 
the " angel of the Church of Ephe- 
sus," who shares John's reproof to 
the Church for leaving their first 
love (Rev. ii. 1). Comp. chap. xx. 
§ 20. 



" Two converts, watching by" his side, 
Alike his love and greetings share ; 
Luke, the beloved, the sick soul's guide, 
And Demas, named in fait' ring prayer." 

"Pass a few years — look in once more — 
The saint is in ids bonds again; 
Save that his hopes more boldly soar, 
He and his lot unchanged remain. 

" But only Luke is with him now : — 
Alas, that even the martyr's cell, 
Heaven's very gate, should scope allow 
For the false world's seducing spell." 
Christian Yeah. St. Luke. 

103 2 Tim. iv. 11. 

104 The fact itself is involved in the 
general obscurity of the post-apostol- 
ic age. The theory which finds in 
Hcb. xiii. 23 an indication that Tim- 
othy shared St. Paul's last imprison- 
ment, and was released from it by 
the death of Nero, is quite inadmis- 
sible on our view of the authorship 
and date of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
Ecclesiastical tradition makes him 
continue to act as bishop of Ephesus, 



630 Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 

prospect of martyrdom are stated for the very purpose of 
fortifying the disciple. " Be not thou ashamed of the testi- 
mony (to paprvpiov) of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner ; but 
be thou partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel, according to 
the power of God." " If we be dead with him we shall also 
live with him : if we suffer, we shall also reign with him : if 
we deny him, he also will deny us." Such are the last coun- 
sels of the spiritual father to the son whom he desired to be 
his follower in all things, even to the martyr's death, that so 
he might share with him the martyr's crown. 

And how these principles sustained the Apostle's own 
mind, and put the climax to the moral grandeur and spiritual 
glory of his career, can be told in no words except his own. The 
contrast is indeed striking between the Epistles written dur- 
ing his former imprisonment and this last letter to Timothy. 
Then, even while brought face to face Avith death, and desir- 
ing it as gain, he looks back to the world, in which he had 
yet much to do for Christ ; and he feels too that his OAvn spir- 
itual life is not yet perfect : — " Brethren, I count not myself 
to have apprehended ; but this one thing I do, forgetting 
those things which are behind, and reaching forward unto 
those things that are before, I press toward the mark for the 
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 105 But 
now his work is done ; the last tie of service that bound him 
to the world is severed ; the goal to which he had pressed 
forward is within his reach: — "Jam now ready to be offered, 
and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the 
good fight, 100 I have finished my couese, I have kept the 
faith. For the rest, there is laid up for me the crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give 
me at that day : and not to me only, but unto all them also 
that love his appearing -.'' M07 The last words put the finishing 
stroke to the Apostle's course : he ends, as he began, " a pat- 
tern for them that should hereafter believe on Christ." We 
may well be content, though our curiosity about the precise 
time and manner of his departure remain unsatisfied, when 
we have this last view of him in his own writings : — " The 
Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve 
me unto his heavenly kingdom*, to whom be glory for ever 
and ever. Amen." 108 

§ 13. We have the concurrent testimony of ecclesiastical 



Phil. iii. 13, 14. ; known metaphors from the Grecian 

games. 

107 2 Tim. iv. 6-8. 
10P 2 Tim. iv. 18, 



106 More exactly, I have completed 
the glorious contest, rlv ayuva rbv na 



?.bv ■hyuviojucu, one of Paul's well- 






A.D. 6$ or 67. 



Martyrdom of St. Paul. 



631 



antiquity, that St. Paul was beheaded at Rome during the 
Neronian persecution. The earliest allusion to his death is in 
the same passage of Clemens Romanus which has been 
quoted as the authority for his journey to the West : — " Hav- 
ing gone to the boundary of the West, and borne witness be- 
fore the governors, he was thus released from the world." 109 
The next authorities are those quoted in the Ecclesiastical 
History of Eusebius, the contemporary of Constantine the 
Great; 114 — Dionysius, bishop of Corinth (a.d. 180), says that 
Peter and Paul went to Italy, and taught there together, and 
suffered martyrdom about the same time : — Caius, a learned 
presbyter of Rome, supposed to be writing within the 2d 
century, names the grave of St. Peter on the Vatican, and 
that of St. Paul on the road to Ostia. Eusebius himself en- 
tirely adopts the tradition that St. Paul was beheaded under 
Nero at Rome. The next testimony in importance is that of 
Tertullian (early in the 3d century), who says that at Rome 
" Peter was conformed to the passion of the Lord ; Paul was 
crowned with the death of John the Baptist." 111 The Mar- 
tyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul, under Nero at Rome, 
is mentioned in the Chronicle of Eusebius, which is the earli- 
est authority for the date. The twofold event is placed un- 
der the year 2083 from the birth of Abraham, Olymp. 211.4, 
and the 13th year of Nero, data which, though not free from 
difficulties of interpretation, point to a.d. 67. 112 Jerome 
(about a.d. 480) places the event in the 14th of Nero ; but he 
probably means the 13th, being misled by an error in the 
Chronicle, which he translated: he also specifies the mode 



10u 'Err; to reptia rfjc dvaeug e/Jduv 
not fxaprvp^aae ettI tcjv yyovtxevuv, 
ovru)-; a-rf/jAyri rov kogjiov. 

110 Hist. Eccl. ii. 25. 

311 De Prescript. H(?ret. 36. " Pe- 
trus passioni dominie* adrequatur, 
Paulas Johannis exitu coronatur." 

1X2 Euseb. Chron. Arm. The Chroni- 
con of Eusebius (the Greek text of 
which is lost) exists in two forms ; 
the Latin version of St. Jerome, and 
the Armenian Version which was 
discovered at Constantinople, and 
published in 1818. The era adopted 
by Eusebius is the Birth of Abraham, 
which he places in B.C. 2016, reckon- 
ing his years from the autumnal equinox. 
Side by side with these years are 
placed the Olympiads, the Era of 
which is Midsummer B C. 776. This 



difference of a quarter of a year be- 
tween the two eras is dealt with in 
two different ways in the two Ver- 
sions. Both make the beginning of 
each Olympic year coincide with an 
Abrahamic year ; but Jerome marks 
the Olympic year at the Eusebian year 
in ichich it began, the Armenian at 
that in which it ended: the former be- 
gins the Olympic year a quarter too 
late ; the latter anticipates the next 
Olympic year by three-quarters of a 
year : and the Olympiads of the Ar- 
menian are always a year behind 
those of Jerome. Clinton considers 
that the notation of Jerome is that of 
Eusebius. The following Table ex- 
hibits the correspondence'for the four 
years over which the present ques« 
iion ranges : — 



632 



Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 



and place of St. Paul's death and burial. 113 The anonymous 
author of the " Martyrdom of St. Paul " states that he was be- 
headed under Nero, on June 29th, 114 in the 36th year from 
the Passion of the Saviour, 330 years before the time at 
which he himself wrote, which was in the 4th consulshij) of 
Honorius and the 3d consulship of Arcadius, a.d. 396, which 
would bring us to a.d. 66 ; and this agrees with Epiphanius, 
who places it in the 12th of Nero. The choice seems to lie 
between 66 and 67 : Mr. Lewin adopts the former. The 
mode of St. Paul's death, by simple beheading (without 
scourging), which was the military form of execution at this 
time, 116 was doubtless the last privilege of bis citizenship. 
Like his Master, he suffered " without the gate," on the busy 
road leading to the port of Ostia ; probably under the shadow 
of the sepulchral pyramid of Caius Cestius, which now over- 
hangs the Protestant cemetery. 110 



B.C. 


Qr 


Begin- 
ning. 


Ann. Xeron. 


Euset). 

Ann. Ab. 


Hieron. 
Olymp. 


Arm. 
Olymp. 


Olymp. 
(true.) 


A.U.C. 


05 


1. 

2. 


Jan. 1 
Apr. 1 
July 1 










211.1 


813 




4. 


Oct. 1 


XII. from Oct. 13 


2081 


211.1 


211.2 






66 


1. 
2. 
3. 


Jan. 1 
Apr. 1 
July 1 










211.2 


819 




4. 


Oct. 1 


XIII. " Oct. 13 


2082 


211.2 


211.3 






67 


1. 


Jan. 1 
Apr. 1 
July 1 










211.3 


820 




4. 


Oct. 1 


XIV. tl Oct. 13 


20S3 


211.3 


£11.4 






63 


1. 
2. 
3. 


Jan. 1 
Apr. 1 
Jiilyl 


Ob. June 9 








211.4 


S21 




4. 


Oct. 1 




20S4 


211.4 


212.1 







The apparent discrepancy still left 
between this Table and the statement 
quoted in the text is explained by the 
fact that Eusebius places the acces- 
sion of Nero one year too late; and 
we must either alter his " 13th of 
Nero" into the 14th, or deduct one 
from his other figures. The latter 
is preferable, as the traditional date 
of June 29th, in the 14th of Nero 
(b.c. 68), would place the martyrdom 
after Nero's death. 

113 Catal Script, art. "Paulas:" 
" Hie igitur xiv° Neronis anno (eo- 
dem die quo Petrus) Romae pro 
Christo capite truncatus sepultusque 
fst in via Qstiensi " As to the 



I error of a year, see the preceding 
! note. 

114 This day, from the tradition 
| preserved by Jerome, that the two 
! Apostles suffered at the same time, 

is marked in the ecclesiastical calen- 
dar as St. Peter's. 

115 See Conybeare and Howson, ii. 
596, note 4. 

116 Sec the reflections on this coin- 
j cidence in Conybeare and Howson, 

j ii. 597. As to the place of St. Paul's 
| execution, Dr. Howson observes that 
jit was not uncommon to send prison- 
ers, whose death might attract too 
much notice at Rome, to some dis- 
tance from the city, under a miiitar* 



A.D. 66. Person and Character of St. Paul. 633 

§ 14. Personal Appearance and Character of St. Paid. — 
We have no very trustworthy sources of information as to 
the personal appearance of St. Paul. Those which we have 
are referred to and quoted in Conybeare and Howson. 11T 
They are the early pictures and mosaics described by Mrs. 
Jameson, and passages from Malalas, Nieephorus, and the 
apocryphal Acta Paidi et T/ieclce. ils They all agree in ascrib- 
ing to the Apostle a short stature, a long face with high 
forehead, an aquiline nose, close and prominent eyebrowSc 
Other characteristics mentioned are baldness, grey eyes, a 
clear complexion, and a winning expression. Of his tempera- 
ment and character St. Paul is himself the best painter. His 
speeches and letters convey to us, as we read them, the truest 
impressions of those qualities which helped to make him The 
Great Apostle. We perceive the warmth and ardor of his 
nature, his deeply affectionate disposition, the tenderness 
of his sense of honor, the courtesy and personal dignity of 
his bearing, his perfect fearlessness, his heroic endurance ; 
we perceive the rare combination of subtlety, tenacity, and 
versatility in his intellect ; we perceive also a practical wis- 
dom which we should have associated with a cooler tempera- 
ment, and a tolerance which is seldom united with such im- 
petuous convictions. And the principle which harmonized 
all these endowments and directed them to a practical end 
was, beyond dispute, a knowledge of Jesus Christ in the Di- 
vine Spirit. Personal allegiance to Christ as to a living Mas- 
ter, with a growing insight into the relation of Christ to each 
man and to the world, carried the Apostle forward on a 
straight course through every vicissitude of personal fortunes 
and amid the various habits of thought which he had to en- 
counter. The conviction that he had been entrusted with a 
Gospel concerning a Lord and Deliverer of men was Avhat 
sustained him and purified his love for his own people, while 
it created in him such a love for mankind that he only knew 
himself as a servant of others for Christ's sake. 

It would also be beyond the scope of this book to attempt 
to exhibit the traces of St. Paul's Apostolic work in the his- 
tory of the Church. But there is one indication, so excep- 

'ascort, for execution. Wieseler com- 1 martyrdom, and the Porta Ostiensia 
pares the execution of Calpurnius j (in the present Aurelianic wall) is 
Galerianus at the 40th mile-stone called the Gate of St. Paul. The 



from the city on the Appian Way 
[Ti\c. Hist. iv. 1 1, a.d. 70). The great 
basilica of St. Paul now stands out- 
side the walls of Rome, on the road 
to Ostia, in commemoration of his 
B B 2 



traditional spot of the martyrdom is 
the tre fontane, not far from the Ba- 
silica. 

117 Vol. i. ch. vii. end. 

118 Conybeare and Howson, i. 197 



634 Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap.xix. 

tionnl as to deserve special mention, which shows that the dif- 
ficulty of understanding the Gospel of St. Paul, and of recon« 
ciling it with a true Judaism, was very early felt. This is in 
the apocryphal work called the Clementines (ra KX^Vna), 
supposed to be written before the end of the 2d century. 
These curious compositions contain .direct assaults (for 
though the name is not given, the references are plain and un 
disguised) upon the authority and the character of St. Paul. 
St. Peter is represented as the true Apostle of the Gentiles as 
well as of the Jews, and St. Paul is 6 e-^Opog avQpu-n-oQ, who op- 
poses St. Peter and St. James. The portions of the Clement- 
ines which illustrate the writer's view of St. Paul will be 
found in Stanley's Corinthians; 119 and an account of the 
whole work, with references to the treatises of Schliemann 
and Baur, in Gie^eler. 120 

§ 15. In direct contradiction to these malicious figments, 
the latest evidence of Scripture and the testimony of the 
early Church exhibit the two chief Apostles as true fellow- 
laborers in the work for their common Lord, and " in their 
death not divided." Their harmonious working had been 
thoroughly established by the celebrated agreement made at 
Jerusalem, that the one should go to the Jews and the other 
to the Gentiles ; 121 nor was it interrupted even by that pain- 
ful collision at Antioch, when Peter submitted to Paul's re- 
proof for his weak compliance with the Judaizers. 122 From 
that time to his death, all that we learn of St. Peter in the 
New Testament is the little that can be inferred from his 
own Epistles. Indeed the consecutive history of his part 
in the foundation of Christianity ceases with his miraculous 
deliverance from the prison where he lay condemned to death 
by Herod Agrippa. 123 

The special work assigned to him by the symbol of the 
keys was now completed. He had founded the Church, open- 
ed the gates to Jews and Gentiles, and distinctly laid down 
the conditions of admission. Almost direct from his prison 
door he left Jerusalem, but we are not told whither he went : 
certainly not to Rome, where there are no traces of his pres- 
ence before the last year's of his life. He probably remained 
in Judssa, visiting and confirming the Churches: some old 



:19 In trod, to 2 Cor. 

120 Eccl Hist. i. § 58. These, re- 
marks are from the article Pafl, by 
the Rev. Llewellyn Dsivies, in the 
Dictionary of the Bible, the most im- 



portant parts of which have been in- 
corporated with the chapters of this 
work relating to St. Paul. 
121 See chap, xv., § 17. 
See chap, xv., § 20. 



See diap. xv., § 4. 






A.D. G6. Review of Si. Peter's Life. 635 

but not trustworthy traditions represent him as preaching in 
Caesarea and other cities on the western coast of Palestine. 
He makes one more appearance in the Acts at the " Council 
of Jerusalem," where he took the lead in the discussion, urg- 
ing the great principle, established by the case of Cornelius 3 
that purifying faith and saving grace remove all distinction 
between believers. His arguments, adopted and enforced by 
James, decided that question at once and forever. But he ex< 
ercised, on this occasion, none of the powers which Romanists 
hold to be inalienably attached to the chair of St. Peter. He 
did not preside at the meeting, he neither summoned nor dis- 
missed it ; he neither collected the suffrages nor pronounced 
the decision. He retained that personal but unofficial priority 
which had been assigned to him by Christ ; but the govern- 
ment of the Church of Jerusalem was in the hands of James^ 
The silence of the Scripture narrative concerning Peter, 
from this point onward, is- a direct consequence of the plan 
of the Acts of the Apostles. As each step in the spread of 
the Gospel is completed, the agent — Peter, John, or Philip — 
recedes from view, just as Paul himself does after his last 
testimony to the Jews at Rome. The two great movements 
by which Christianity was launched among the Jews and 
the Gentiles being fairly started, the detailed progress of the 
work is not pursued, and hence it follows that the acts of the 
other Apostles find no place in the history. Peter was prob- 
ably employed, for the most part, in building up and complet- 
ing the organization of the Churches in Palestine and the ad- 
joining districts. Beyond these limits, his name is associated 
by ecclesiastical tradition with the Churches of Corinth, An- 
tioch, and Rome, but with no others. 125 The evidence of his 
having been at Corinth between St. Paul's first labors there 
and the writing of the First Epistle to the Corinthians is 
very strong; 120 but the reference to parties who claimed 

m Accordingly St. Paul names '""The following are th ; chief 

James before Cephas and John in his points of evidence : — (1.) The allu- 

necount of the conference which sions to Peter in the First Epistle 

probably took place at this time (Gal. to the Corinthians. (2). Inferences 

ii. 9). drawn from the statements of Cle- 

125 The Church of Alexandria is mens Rom anus (Epist. I. ad Corinth. 

supposed to have been founded by c. 4). (3.) The positive assertion of 

St. Mark after Peter's death. It is Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth (a.d. 

an important fact, as bearing upon 180 at the latest), a man of excellent 

the Romish claim of supremacy in judgment, who was not likely to be 

right of Peter, that St. Leo repre- misinformed, nor to make such an 

&ents the relation of St. Peter to assertion lightly in an. epistle ad- 

Antioch as precisely the same in dressed to the Bishop and Church of 

tvhich he stood to Rome (Epist. 92). Rome. 



636 Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 

Pecer, Apollos, Paul, and even Christ, as their chiefs, involves 
no opposition between the Apostles themselves, such as the 
fabulous Clementines and modern infidelity assume. 

§ 1 6. Next comes the evidence furnished by the First Epistle 
of Peter, which is addressed " to the elect sojourners of the Dis- 
persion 127 of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithyn- 
ia," that is, the whole of Asia Minor, except some of the 
central parts, and the sea-board south of the Taurus. Wheth- 
er Peter himself actually visited these countries is very 
doubtful, from the absence of any personal reminiscences and 
salutations in the Epistle. But there is one word which fixes 
the place from which the Epistle was written, if at least we 
take that word in its literal significance : — " The Church that 
is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you." 128 If 
we suppose that Peter was visiting his Jewish brethren of the 
Eastern Dispersion, there is no place Avhich he would be more 
likely to make the goal and head-quarters of such a tour. 
Babylon was at that time, and for some hundreds of years aft- 
erward, a chief seat of Jewish culture. Under the tolerant 
rule of the Parthians, the Jewish families there formed a sep- 
arate and wealthy community; and thence they had spread 
to many of the districts of Asia Minor to which the Epistle 
was addressed. Their intercourse with Judaea was unin- 
terrupted ; and their language, probably a mixture of He- 
brew and Nabatean, must have borne a near affinity to the 
Galilean dialect. Christianity certainly made considerable 
progress at an early time in that and the adjoining districts ; 
and the prevailing Petrine tone of the great Christian schools 
at Edessa and Nisibis is supposed by some to indicate the 
Apostle as their founder. 

m 1 Pet. i. I. kiileKTolg irapem- 1 Euseb. iii. 1), who is followed by 
df/iiou SiaoKopag. It is the almost ! Epiphanius (Hair, xxvii.) and Jerome 
universal opinion of ancient and (Catal. c. 1.), seems merely to have 
modern commentators, that the drawn the inference from the Epis- 
Epistle was written to Hebrew con- ' tie itself — icsKfjpvKEvai eolkev. The 
verts ; but several passages are evi- almost unanimous opinion of the 
dently addressed to the Gentile mem- ancient commentators, that Rome 
bers of the same churches ; as 1 Fet. — the mystical Babylon - — is meant, 
14, 18, ii. 9, 10. has been adopted and maintained 

128 2 Yet. v. 13: ' Aarrd^ETat, v(j,dg y with great ingenuity, and some very 
kv Jiaj3vX(l)vi avvEKkearf] : there can be strong arguments by Schaff, Nean- 
no doubt that EKKhjaia is the word to der, Steiger, De Wette, and Wiese- 
be understood, though some com- j ler. Besides, however, the presump- 
mentators have fancifully taken it to tion in favor of the literal sense, 
mean Peter's wife (comp. ek^ext?) in there is the almost certain tact, that 
2 John i., where some again suppose the Apocalypse was not yet writ 
a church to be meant). Origen (aj>. ten. 



A.D. G5 (?). First Epistle of Peter. 63? 

§ 17. But a more important indication than that of place is 
found in the names of the persons who were with Peter when 
he wrote this Epistle, Silvanus and Mark. 129 The close con- 
nection of both with Paul furnishes evidence of intercourse 
between the two Apostles, though severed by the distance be- 
tween the capitals of the Eastern and Western world. Of 
SiLVAisrus we have lost sight, since we saw him as the compan- 
ion of St. Paul's second missionary journey; and there is 
'nothing to show how he came to be in Peter's company. The 
case of Mark is clearer ; for he was with Paul in his first im- 
prisonment at Rome, and he was then contemplating a journey 
to Asia Minor. 130 This intention was no doubt fulfilled, since 
we find him afterward with Timothy at Ephesus. 131 The in- 
terval is just the time at which all indications concur to place 
Peter's First Epistle, and consequently Mark's companionship 
with him; 132 and the inference is highly probable, that Mark 
was the bearer of communications from Paul to Peter. The 
hypothesis that Silvanus also had been sent by Paul from Rome 
to visit the Asiatic churches, of which he had been the joint 
founder, and so had gone on to join Peter at Babylon, seems 
inconsistent with the absence of his name from the Acts and 
the Pauline Epistles subsequent to the second circuit. Oth- 
ers think that he visited the Asiatic churches in his character 
as one of the leaders of the Church of Jerusalem, 133 and then 
joined Peter at Babylon. 

Be this as it may, the fact is deeply significant, that, when 
Peter wrote this Epistle to the Hebrew Christians of the 
Eastern Dispersion, two of Paul's companions were his inti- 
mate associates, and one of them the bearer of the Epistle 
which its writer intended as a manifesto of the true doctrine 
of the grace of God. " By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto 
you, as I account him, I have written briefly, exhorting and tes- 
tifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand." 134 

129 1 Pet. v. 12, 13. | the words, 6c ?joyi^o[iai (1 Pet. v. 12 : 

130 Col. iv. 10: Philera. 24. "as I suppose," A.V.), which seem 

131 2 Tim. iv. 11. j to be really an emphatic form of com- 
133 Concerning Mark's connection mendation, " I account Jam a faithful 

with Peter, and the writing of his brother to you; do you confide in 

Gospel under the Apostle's supervis- him as he deserves." These words, 

ion, see further in the supplemental however, go far to support the idea 

chapter on the Apostles and Evan- that Silas, as the representative of 

gclists. Pauline teaching, had met with some 

133 Acts xv. 22. In this character of that opposition from the Jewish 

Silas must have been well known to churches of the Dispersion, which it 

Peter, even before his intimacy with was one object of the Epistle to cor- 

Paul : a fact which seems to negative rect. 
the inference sometimes drawn from m 1 Pet. v. 12. 



638 



Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX. 



This distinctly Pauline phrase 135 sums up what has been 
called the Pauline element running throughout the whole 
Epistle; and, though the epithet jars upon the ear — -as if it 
could be supposed that the Apostles taught different versions 
of the one Gospel — the Epistle may well be designated as Pe* 
ier^s testimony to the truth of the Gospel taught by Paul. 

This object, which Peter distinctly affirms in the Second 
Epistle, 136 may be traced as clearly in the First as if Paul had 
been named in both; and it is a glorious exhibition of the 
unity of Christian doctrine that, while the Apostle of the 
Gentiles is doing battle with the Judaizers, the Apostle of the 
Jews cuts them off from their favorite appeal from Paul to 
his superior authority. This character is plainly seen both 
in the general teaching of the Epistle and in particular points 
of style and phraseology. Sometimes, indeed, we might fan- 
cy the positions of the two Apostles interchanged. The 
Apostle of the circumcision says not a word of the perpetual 
obligation, the dignity, or even the bearings, of the Mosaic 
Law. There are, in fact, more traces of what may, in one 
sense, be called Judaizing views, more of sympathy with na- 
tional hopes, not to say prejudices, in the Epistles to the Ro- 
mans and Galatians, than is this of Peter. This is a point of 
great importance, as showing how utterly opposed was the 
teaching of the original Apostles, whom St. Peter certainly 
represents, to that Judaistic narrowness which speculative 
rationalism has imputed to all the early followers of Christ, 
with the exception of St. Paul. 

§ 18. The resemblances of style and expression present a 
curious problem, to which Peter himself has given us the key. 
" Even as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom 
given unto him hath written unto you ; as also in all his Epis- 
tles^ speaking in them of these things; in which are some 
things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned 
and unstable wrest, as also the other Scriptures, unto their own 
destruction." 137 This celebrated passage, the very key-stone 



135 Besides many other passages, sec 
especially Acts xx. 24 ; 1 Corinthians 
xv. 1. 

13C 2 Peter iii. 15. 

137 2 Peter iii. 15, 1G. The spe- 
cific doctrine here quoted from St. 
Paul — that " the long-suffering of 
our Lord is salvation " — is found in 
the Epistle to the Romans (ii. 4) : an 
interesting confirmation of what is 
implied in the context, that ail Paul's 



Epistles were in general circulation 
throughout the churches, and, with 
the other books of the New Testa- 
ment that were already written (in- 
cluded, like the Epistles, in the 
phrase the other Scriptwes), were re- 
garded as parts of Holy Scripture. 
So early do we trace the formation of 
the New Testament Canon by a prog- 
ress of vital growth, not of arbitra- 
ry selection. 



A.D. G5 (?). Harmony of Paul and Peter. 639 

of apostolic evidence to the divine authority of all St. Paul's 
Epistles, and by inference of the other- Scriptures of the New 
Testament as well as of the Old — gives at the same time the 
clearest exhibition of an Apostle applying his ordinary human 
intelligence to the study of those Scriptures. The " unletter- 
ed layman " 138 of Galilee, enlightened by* the Holy Spirit, ad- 
mired deeply the wisdom granted to Paul, while, by the spir- 
itual discernment given to himself, he grappled with the dim 
culties of his arguments. But we may be sure that this was 
not accomplished, even by Peter, without that careful reading, 
" whereby," Paul himself had written, " ye may understand 
my knowledge in the mystery of Christ." 139 What a suggest- 
ive picture : Peter perusing PauVs Epistles ! Such an at- 
tentive study, perused with an anxiety to clear up the doubts 
at which the unlearned and unstable might stumble, could not 
but leave its mark on Peter's style. 

Nor can we think that he would despise the aid of Paul's 
companion, the Hellenist Silvanus, whose name was joined 
with Paul's in the superscription of some of these very Epis- 
tles, 140 and in the declaration of the Gospel taught by the 
Apostle. 141 The mere words " by Silvanus I have written to 
you" refer, according to usage, to the bearer rather than the 
writer or amanuensis of the Epistle ; but they may include 
the latter meaning. At all events, it is highly probable that 
Silvanus, considering his rank, character, and special connec- 
tion with those churches, and with their great Apostle and 
founder, would be consulted by St. Peter throughout, and 
that they would read together the Epistles of St. Paul, espe- 
cially those to the Asiatic churches. Thus a Pauline coloring 
may have been introduced into the Epistle partly unconscious- 
ly, but in some passages amounting to a studied imitation of 
St. Paul's representations of Christian truth. The early 
writers inform us that Peter employed interpreters ; 142 nor is 
there any thing inconsistent with his position and character 
in the supposition that Silvanus, perhaps also Mark, may have 

13d Acts iv. 13, ayodfijiaroi nal ISi- Glancias, one of these interpreters. 

urai seems to mean ignorant of rabbin- This shows at least the impression 

ical lore. j that the Apostle did not understand 

130 Eph. iii. 4, Sivacde avaytyvda- ' Greek, or did not speak it with fluen- 

Kovreg vorjaai. Observe the verbal cy. Connected with this view is the 

connection with the dvGvarjra of St. explanation of the differences of 

Peter. \ style between Peter's First and Sec- 

140 1 Thess. i. 1 ; 2 Thess. i. 1. ond Epistles by supposing; that he was 

141 2 Cor. i. 19. aided in the former chiefly by the 

142 Basilides, an early Gnostic, pro- Hellenist Silas, in the latter by the 

fessed to derive his svstcm from Hebrew Mark. 



640 Last Days of St. Paul and St. Peter. Chap. XIX 

assisted him in giving expression to the thoughts suggested 
to him by the Holy Spirit. We have thus, at any rate, a not 
unsatisfactory solution of- the difficulty arising from corre- 
spondences, both of style and modes of thought, in the writ- 
ings of two Apostles who differed so widely in gifts and ac- 
quirements. 143 For the rest, the objects of the Epistle are, to 
comfort and strengthen the Christians in a season of severe 
trial ; to enforce the practical and spiritual duties involved in 
their calling ; and to warn them against the special tempta- 
tions attached to their position. 144 

§ 19. The whole tone of St. Peter's First Epistle is that of 
a man advanced in life and ap23roaching the end of his career. 
Thus far, then, we have no evidence in the New Testament to 
connect the Apostle in any way with Rome ; but we have, on 
the other hand, strong negative evidence in the absence of 
any allusion to St. Peter in the Epistle to the Romans. 
Whence, then, arose that tradition of St. Peter's episcopate 
at Rome, on which the Papacy — parodying our Lord's great 
prophecy of the Rock — has founded the claims that long 
transformed European Christianity into a system of worldly 
power and ambition ? The only positive evidence worth no- 
tice is a statement of Eusebius, so obviously erroneous as to 
be void of all authority. He makes St. Peter visit Rome in 
a.d. 42, and remain there twenty years. 145 Now it can be 
shown that the date rests on a miscalculation ; and the dura- 
tion of the visit is altogether inconsistent with the notices in 
the Acts of Peter's presence at Jerusalem and Antioch. 

We might almost say that the sole color of probability has 
been given to the Romish assumption by the uneasy anxiety 
of some Protestants to reject the one fact that is supported 
by a mass of evidence, the martyrdom of St. Peter at Rotne 
about the same time as St. Paul. That Peter was appointed, 

143 The most striking resemblances but extends the time to twenty-five 
are perhaps 1 Pet. i. 3 with Eph. i. years. The attempts of Romanists 
3; 1 Pet. ii. 18 with Eph. vi. 5; 1 to show the bare possibility of these 
Pet. iii. 1 witli Eph. v. 22 ; 1 Pet. v. 5 statements are so contradictory as to 
with Eph. v. 21 : but there are almost refute one another. The most in- 
equally distinct parallels to passages gcnious is that of Windischman, who 
in the Epistles to the Romans, Co- assumes that Peter went to Rome im- 
rinthians, Colossians, Thessalonians, mediately after his deliverance from 
and Philemon. J prison in a.d. 44 (Acts xii.), and 

144 The important questions con- ; that he left in consequence of the 
nected with the Second Epistle o/Pe- . Claudian persecution, between a.d. 
ier are reserved for the Appendix on 49 and 51. To so gratuitous an as- 
the Books of the New Testament. ; sumption it is enough to reply, that 

145 Euseb. Chron. Arm. s. a. Jc- it leaves no room for the length of 
rome (Catal c. I) follows Eusebius, | time assigned by Eusebius. 



A.D. 66 or 67. Martyrdom of St. Peter. 641 

by a higher will than that of Nero, to suffer death by cruci- 
fixion, is the unquestioned meaning of our Lord's celebrated 
prophecy. 146 Clement of Rome attests his martyrdom in a 
general connection with that of Paul. 147 A more detailed 
testimony, of very high antiquity, is that of Dionysius, Bishop 
of Corinth (a.d. 180), that " Nero, the first who signally pro- 
claimed himself an antagonist to God, 148 was excited to the 
slaughter of the Apostles. They relate, then, that Paul was 
beheaded at Rome itself, and that Peter was likewise cruci- 
fied." 149 Eusebius himself says elsewhere that " Peter was 
crucified at Rome, head downward, and Paul was behead- 
ed." 150 The presbyter Caius (about a.d. 200) speaks of St. 
Peter's tomb on the Vatican ; and we might add the testi- 
monies of Origen, Tertullian, and, in a word, the universal 
consent of the early Fathers. As to the date, the oldest au- 
thorities merely say that the two Apostles suffered about the 
same time, and under Nero. The chronologists, as we have 
seen, fix their martyrdom to the same year, varying between 
the 12th, 13th, and 14th of Nero, that is between Oct. 13, a.d. 
65, and June 9, a.d. 68. Jerome places both on the same 
day, which tradition makes the 29th of June. We can easily 
understand the desire to associate the two great Apostles as 
closely as possible in prison and in death ; but such a connec- 
tion seems to be excluded by the negative evidence of the 
Second Epistle to Timothy; though, otherwise, we might 
gladly trace it in Peter's last allusion to " our beloved broth- 
er Paul." 151 

There remains one point of considerable importance. 
Though, as we have seen, it is impossible to believe that Pe- 
ter could have been at Rome till the last year or two of his 
life, the best authorities represent his martyrdom as preceded 

146 John xiii. 36, xxi. 18, 19. I bellishments of tradition. Origen 

147 Epist. T. ad. Cor. v. '0 Uirpog j (ap. Euseb. iii. 1) ascribes it to the 
Sia ty'kov adiiiov ovx eva ovde <5i>o, aXka 1 choice of Peter, who deemed himself 
Tcleiovag vTrrjveyKev ttovovc, nai ovru\ unworthy to be crucified in the same 
uaprvprjoac ETropeWj] sic tov b(j>ei?i6fj.E- 1 position as his Lord. We have many 



vov totcov rfjQ do^jje. The absence of 
any mention of the place of Peter's 
death is quite natural, as at that ear- 
ly period it would be well known. 

148 deojidxoc. 

149 Euseb. H. E. ii. 25. 



examples (for instance during th< 
siege of Jerusalem) of the spirit of 
cruel mockery with which the Roman 
soldiers fastened their victims to the 
cross in all manner of strange atti- 
tudes. It is said that Peter's wife, 



Euseb. Dem. Evang. iii. 3. p. 116. after sharing his journeys and evan- 
iltrpoq 6e etti Tw/z)/f Kara nEcfralT/c I gelic labors, was martyred shortly be- 
oravpovrai. In this statement of the , fore him, and was supported in the 
singular manner of Peter's execution! hour of trial by her husband's exlior- 
wc begin, perhaps, to trace the era- ! tation. lbl 2 Pet. iii. 15. 



642 



Establishment of Christianity. 



Chap. XIX. 



by a period of labor in Italy. Thus Ignatius, one of the 
Apostolic Fathers, in his undoubtedly genuine Epistle to the 
Romans, speaks of St. Peter in terms which imply a special 
connection with their Church. 152 Dionysius of Corinth, in the 
passage quoted above, is accounting for the intimate relations 
between the Churches of Corinth and Rome by the fact, 
which every body knew, that Peter and Paul both taught in 
Italy. Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, who was a hearer 
of St. John, bears distinct witness to St. Peter's presence at 
Rome ; and from the eminent position that he held in the 
West, as bishop of Lyon, as well as his constant intercourse 
with the East, he can hardly have been misinformed. 153 In 
short, the churches most nearly connected with that of Rome, 
and those least affected by* its influence, which was as yet but 
inconsiderable in the East, concur in the statement that Peter 
was a joint founder of that Church and suffered death in 
that city. 

But just in proportion to their belief in this fact, is the 
weight of their implicit denial of the assumption that Peter 
was the sole founder or resident head of that Church, or 
that the see of Rome derived from him any claim to suprema- 
cy. At the utmost, they place him on a footing of equality 
with St. Paul. 154 The figment of Peter's supremacy over the 
other Apostles, as the Rock on which the Church is built, re- 
solves itself into the metaphor from his name which Roman- 
ists are never weary of misquoting ; but w^e need go no fur- 
ther than Peter's own beautiful developement of the figure— 
which he amplifies as if conscious that his distinctive name 
bound him to bear testimony to the Chief Corner Stone — for 
a confirmation of the great ti'uth proclaimed by Paul: — 
" Other foundation can r^o man lay than that is laid, which 
is Jesus Christ." 155 -■<" 

§ 20. The "wise master-builders," who placed the first 



152 Epist. ad Rom. iv. 

:53 Adv. Hoer.ux. 1, 8. ' 

154 Coteler has collected a large 
number of passages from the early 
Fathers, in which the name of Paul 
precedes that of Peter. Fabricius 
observes that this is the general usage 
of the Greek Fathers. It is also to 
be remarked that, when the Fathers 
of the 4th and 5th centuries — for in- 
stance, Chrysostom and Augustine — 
*tse the mere title 6 ' AiroaroXoc or 
Apostolus, they mean Paul, not Peter. 



105 I Pet. ii. 4 8 : comp. 1 Cor. iii. 
10-12; Eph. ii. 20, 21, etc. These 
and similar passages distinctly show 
the secondary sense in which the 
Apostles were said to lay, and them- 
selves to be, the foundation of the 
Church — the Apostles — not any one 
of them— as is especially seen in St. 
John's vision of the New Jerusalem. 
"The wall of the city" — its outer 
bulwark — "had twelve foundations, 
and in them the names of the twelcft 
Apostles of the Lamb" (Rev. xxi. 14J. 



A.D. 70. Epoch of the Fall of Jerusalem. 643 

' living stones " upon that " Rock of Ages " — like the massive 
substructions laid by Solomon upon the Rock of Zion — are 
now vanishing from the scene of their labors, at the very 
time when the newly-finished Temple — the type of that spirit- 
ual edifice — awaits its destruction from the Roman armies. 
The greater number of the Apostles have early disappeared 
to the uncertain scenes of their evangelic labors. 156 Of those 
who fill a prominent place in the Scripture history, James the 
son of Zebedee has long since died by the sword of Herod, 157 
and James, the brother of our Lord, has lately fallen by the 
tumultuous judgment of the Sanhedrim. 158 Jude's voice 
alone is heard, concurring with Peter's in denouncing the cor- 
ruptions of the last times. During the years included within 
the range of doubt concerning the martyrdom of Paul and 
Peter (a.d. 66-68) the final revolt of the Jews has broken 
out ; and an exterminating war only awaits its end in the de- 
struction of the Temple. The death of the arch-persecutor 
suspends for two years the catastrophe by which the visible 
house of God is to make way for the spiritual edifice, which 
is now sufficiently completed to take its place. In that sol- 
emn interval some modern critics of high repute place the last 
inspired voice which was to complete the testimony of the 
Apostles and the canon of the Scriptures, and make the end 
of the work of St. Peter and St. Paul followed at once by the 
special work of St. John. 

" It was not till the removal of the first and the second 
Apostle from the scene of their earthly labors, that there 
burst upon the whole civilized world that awful train of ca- 
lamities, which, breaking as it did on Italy, on Asia Minor, 
and on Palestine, almost simultaneously, though under the 
most different forms, was regarded alike by Roman, Chris- 
tian and Jew, as the manifestation of the visible judgment of 
God. 159 It was now, if we may trust the testimony alike of 
internal and external proof — in the interval between the death 
of Nero and the fall of Jerusalem — when the roll of apostol- 
ical Epistles seemed to have been finally closed, when every 
other inspired tongue had been hushed in the grave — that 
there rose from the lonely rock of Patmos that solemn voice 



156 See chapter xx. 357 Chapter 
xv. § 4. 

158 Chapter xviii. § 20. Concern- 
ing the Epistle of James and that as- 
cribed to Jnde, see the Appendix. 

For these calamities, and the 



effect produced by them on those who I Hist. i. 1, 2.' 



witnessed them, compare, in Pales- 
tine, Joseph. B. J. vi. 5, § 3 ; Luke 
xix. 43, xxi, 20-24, xxiii. 28-30 : in 
Asia Minor, 1 Pet. iv. 12-19 ; Eev. 
ii. 10, 13, iii. 10: in the Empire 
generally, Matt. xxiv. 6, 7 ; Tac 



644 Establishment of Christianity. Chap. XIX. 

which mingled with the storm that raged around it, as the 
dirge of an expiring world ; that under the " red and lower- 
ing sky," which had at last made itself understood to the 
sense of the dullest, there rose that awful vision of coming 
destiny, which has received the expressive name of the Reve- 
lation of St. John the Divine" 1 ™ 

Captivating, however, as is this view of the Apocalypse, the 
weight of external testimony, which places the banishment of 
St. John to Patmos under Domitian, makes it more than 
doubtful whether we can adopt the symmetrical arrangement 
which' would close the ISTew Testament history with the fall 
of Jerusalem. 161 But, though we may be compelled to place 
the great work of St. John, in his writings, after that event — 
as looking far forward into the future of the Christian 
Church — we may none the less regard the destruction of Je- 
rusalem as the epoch at which Christianity emerged from its 
initiatory stage, with a Church completely organized, and num- 
bering converts through the whole Roman Empire and even 
beyond its borders to the East, to replace Judaism as the wit- 
ness for the one true God. 

As the prophecy of that catastrophe finished the public testi- 
mony of Christ himself, so did its fulfillment set the seal to the 
work of his Apostles. The events themselves were not a more 
striking confirmation of the divine truth which had predicted 
them, than was the change that they effected the fulfillment of 
the divine plan of establishing a Church on earth ; nay more, 
the anticipatory figure of the consummation of all God's deal- 
ings with his people in this world. This manifold aspect may 
be seen throughout that last and greatest of our Lord's prophe- 
cies ; as indeed it is suggested by the very form of the ques- 
tion that called forth the discourse : — " Tell us, when shall 
these things be " (that is, the time when " there shall not be 
left here one stone upon another which shall not be thrown 
down "), " and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the 
end of the world?" 162 They who put the question were so 
far from having a clear notion of the different epochs it em- 



160 Stanley : Sermons and Essays 
l on the Apostolic Age, Serm. iv. pp. 
'247, 248. 

161 Even if the earlier date of the 
Apocalypse conld be proved, it would 
be almost impossible to include the 
Gospel and Epistles of John within 
the desired limits. 

102 This great final prophecy, the 
climax of all the prophetic testimony 



of the Old Covenant, and the fore- 
shadowing of the accomplishment of 
the New, was uttered, as we have 
seen, on our Lord's last departure 
from the Temple. (See chap. xi. 
§ 8. It is contained in Matt, xxiv., 
xxv. ; Mark xiii. ; Luke xxi. : with 
which must be compared similar ut- 
terances on other occasions, especially 
Luke xvii. 20-37, xix. 41-44.) 






A.D. 70. Coming of the Son of Man. 64:& 

braced, that they were probably thinking of one and the same 
event ; nor was it our Lord's purpose to give them an expla- 
nation of those " times and seasons " which he emphatically 
declares that " no man knoweth, no, not the angels of heaven, 
neither the Son, but my Father only.'" 163 It is no wonder, 
then, that a difficulty is still found in determining what parts 
of the discourse refer to the impending catastrophe of Jerusa- 
lem, and what to the final catastrophe of the world; for in 
truth, both subjects run through the discourse, in the relation 
of type and antitype. As the destruction of the Jewish polity 
and worship was, in reference to the past, the great climax of 
temporal judgment on those who had rejected GacL's_.ancient 
covenants, so in relation to the future, it forms the great type 
oftfieTast judgment. Each of God's three dispensations to- 
ward the disobedient is closed by a catastrophe ; and all three 
are included in our Lord's discourse : the reckless security of 
those who perished in the flood being a pattern of the folly 
both of the Jews and of the finally impenitent. The first of 
these was co-extensive with_the_xace, which was placed, as a 
whole, under the patriarchal dispensation. The second closes 
the probation of the nation, who were chosen for the next exper- 
iment of the legal dispensation, with " great distress and wrath 
upon this peb~ple " — "tribulation such as was not since the be- 
ginning of the world: no, nor ever shall be." But that 
which gives tenfold force to the judgment, and forms the 
chief feature of its typical significance, is its relation to the 
advent and work of Christ himself. This is not only the key 
to the final prophecy, but Jesus had before intimated the 
same truth to the Pharisees who had asked him, " When 
the kingdom of God should come," and he told them that 
"first, he must suffer many things, and be rejected of this 
generation." 164 So likewise he declares to his disciples, " This 
generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." It 
was fit that the generation which, Avhile confessing themselves 
the children of those who killed the prophets, filled up the 
measure of their fathers and brought upon themselves — by 
word as well as deed — all the blood of all the martyrs in the 
one crime of slaying Christ, should be the generation in 
whose time were "the days of vengeance, that all things 
which were written might be fulfilled :" — all the warnings of 
Moses and Joshua and all the prophets, all the ruin which Sol- 
omon, in the very act of dedicating the Temple, had prayed 
God to avert. 

16a Matt, xxiv, 36, Mark xiii. 32. I64 Luke xvii 25. 



64:6 Establishment of Christianity. Chap. XIX, 

But, so far from this being a limitation of the ichole dis- 
course to that time, it furnishes the very key to its typical 
character; for the temporal fate of those who rejected the 
grace which crowned the ancient covenant is the very image 
of the final doom of those who refuse God's last offer of mer- 
cy, and for whom there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. 
From this point of view, Ave may discern the full sense of 
those phrases which form the key-note of the whole prophe- 
cy — the coming of the Son of Man — the sign of the Son of 
Man, coming with power and great glory — the Son of Man 
in his day — when the Son of Man is revealed — the kingdom 
of God, already within (or among) them — which had come, in 
its beginning without observation, but which, when all the an- 
tecedent signs should be accomplished, — then, and not till 
then, should suddenly be revealed, " as the lightning, that 
lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the 
other part under heaven." 

In one sense, indeed, the anointed King could not but come 
in his kingdom. The herald of his advent proclaimed that 
kingdom as at hand ; and he himself preached the Gospel of 
the Kingdom. His ministry was closed by his coming into the 
City and Temple amid Hosannas to the royal Son of David ; 
the inscription on his cross confirmed the title which the 
Jews gave in the very act of disowning him; and, as the 
King of Glory, he burst the bands of death and entered the 
everlasting gates. But, in ascending to his throne, he left his 
kingdom upon earth to his chosen ministers, not only to 
bring the nations into subjection to him, but to convict the 
unbelieving Jews of having rejected their King: — "This 
Gospel of the kingdom must first be preached in all the world 
for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come .*" 
the end, first of that inauguration of his kingdom, which was 
openly displayed when they who had rejected their King 
Avere rooted out from the place given to them by God ; and 
when the seat of David's throne and of Solomon's sanctuary 
was abolished, to make way for that which prophecy had de- 
clared should at once and forever replace them, the kingdom 
that is not of this world, the sanctuary — neither on Zion, nor 
on any other mountain — where " the true worshipers worship 
the Father in spirit and in truth." 

Such is the general sense in which the destruction of 
Jerusalem completes the First Advent of Christ; and his 
own prophecy indicates with wonderful minuteness the signs 
by which his people were to see his coining, and to be warn- 
ed against the false prophets and false Christs whose pre 



A.D. 70. Great Signs from Heaven. 647 

tensions were among those very signs. First come " wars, 
commotions, rumors of wars ; nation set against nation, and 
kingdom against kingdom : " — and the whole East was in a 
ferment, and Judaea in open insurrection, while the armies of 
Spain and Gaul and Germany, Illyricum and Syria, converged 
upon Italy, to decide who should succeed to Nero's purple. 
The throes of inanimate nature seemed to sympathize with 
the travail of the world : — and the histories of the age are full 
of "famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places." 
"Fearful sights and great signs from heaven" appeared to 
mark the very spot at which the great judgment was to de- 
scend : — a comet shaped like a scimitar hung over the devoted 
city during the whole year before the war. Other portents 
are recorded, in the very exaggeration of which we trace how 
" men's hearts failed them for fear, and for looking after 
those things which were coming on the earth : " — an agitation 
which found a voice for several successive years in the monot- 
onous cry of the fanatic, Jesus the son of Ananus, " Woe ! 
woe to Jerusalem ! Woe ! woe to the city and to the Temple." 
" All these were the beginning of sorroios." Meanwhile the 
persecution of the Christians was to confirm their testimony 
for Christ, and to sever them from the fate of the ungodly 
nation, while they waited to see it, " possessing their souls in 
patience," though not without danger to the steadfastness 
of many; till the spread of the Gospel through the known 
world should give the signal for the catastrophe. The new 
house of God was to be built before the old one was taken 
down. 

The particular incidents, by which the disciples were to 
know the coming of the judgment, are next described with 
a minuteness which makes the prophecy the counterpart of 
the history of the siege. Before the foundations of the 
second Temple were laid, the prophet Daniel had predicted 
its desolation by the overspreading (or siege) of abomina- 
tions, as an event following the cutting off of the Messiah. 165 
That word abomination had a definite sense to a Jewish ear. 
denoting the objects of heathen worship ; and their fathers 
had received warning of what were the very abominations by 
which the Holy City was to be laid desolate, when Pompey 
carried the standards consecrated to the heathen gods into 
the sanctuary of Jehovah. And now Christ warns his disci- 

165 Dan. ix. 26, 27. Our Lord's quotation of the prophet Daniel by 
name., with the emphatic addition, "whoso readeth, let him understand," 
is an irrefragable testimony to the genuineness and canonical authority of 
the book. 



648 



Establishment of Christianity. 



Chap. XIX 



pies that when they should see the same abomination " stand- 
ing where it ought not " — " in the holy place " — then they 
would " know that the desolation thereof is nigh : ' r and they 
must seek safety in a flight, the hurry, the danger, the distress 
of which he describes by the most striking images. The 
warning, neglected by the Jews, was heeded by the Chris- 
tians. When they saw the standards — first of Cestius, and 
afterward of Vespasian — pitched upon the hill of Scopus, 
they recognized the sign, and, availing themselves of the res- 
pite caused by the news of Nero's death and the contest of 
the Empire, they obeyed their Lord's injunction to " flee unto 
the mountains." The Christians retired in a body to Pella, 
beyond the Jordan, which became the seat of the Church of 
Jerusalem, till Hadrian permitted them to return to the re- 
stored city. Their withdrawal was the extinction of the 
last element of spiritual life in the city ; and the dead forms 
of Judaism were now only fit to be swept from the face of the 
earth in the manner which Christ had predicted before as 
well as now ; when, in answer to the question, Where these 
judgments should fall, he replied, " Wheresoever the carcase 
is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." 166 

The gathering horrors of the most terrible siege that per- 
haps the whole history of the world records, are described by 
our Lord in language not less impressive than the reality re- 
corded by Josephus; and, besides this prophecy, we have 
another which traces each step with startling minuteness : — 
" For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall 
cast a trench about thee, and compass thee around, and Tceep 
thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, 
and thy children within thee ; because thou knewest not the 
time of thy visitation." 167 While Titus was completing his 
preparations at Csesarea, almost the whole Jewish population 
left in the desolated country districts flocked to Jerusalem, 
to keep the Passover of a.d. 70, just one generation after that 
Passover at which they had refused their day of visitation 
and cut off the Messiah. Her children were still within her 
when, after an attempt to storm the city, the siege was con- 
verted into a blockade, and the fugitives, who fled from the 
unutterable horrors of famine and faction within the walls, 
perished between the lines, or were crucified in attitudes of 
cruel mockery to deter imitators. 

We have already related the progress of the siege ; the de- 
struction of the Temple, in defiance of the most sacred in- 



Luke 



37. 



Luke xix. 43, 44. 



A.D. 70. Siege of Jerusalem. 649 

stincts of Roman discipline; the razing of the city to its 
foundations ; and it only remains to add the testimony borne 
by the very agent of all these horrors to the presence of a 
higher power than his own. Titus exhausted every resource 
of terror and conciliation to avert the ruin of the city and 
the profanation of the sanctuary. As his horse's hoofs 
trampled on the putrefying corses that were thrown over 
from the walls, he lifted up his hands, and called the God of 
heaven to witness that this was not his work. When the 
tower of Antonia was razed, and his engines were brought up 
against the Temple, he first pleaded through Josephus, and 
afterward appeared in person at the gates, to expostulate with 
the zealots against bringing arms and blood into the courts 
where even a stranger's presence was profanation. "I call 
on your gods — I call on my whole army — I call on the Jews 
who are with me — I call on yourselves — to witness, that I do 
not force you to this crime. Come forth, and fight in any 
other place, and no Roman shall violate your sacred edifice." 
The rejection of this appeal, in reliance on the Messiah's ap- 
pearance at the last moment to save his house, illustrates 
another feature of our Lord's prophecy. And when at last 
Titus was an eye-witness to the passive resistance of the mas- 
sive stones against his mandate of destruction, he is reported 
to have exclaimed : — " God has been my helper ! God it was 
that pulled down the Jews from those formidable walls ; for 
what could the hands of men or their engines have availed 
against them ? " The figures of the sacred furniture of the 
Temple, carved on the Arch of Titus at Rome, and the med- 
als of Vespasian with the legend Judaea Capta, are the per- 
petual memorials of the utter removal of the ancient sanctu- 
ary; but not that heathenism might claim the conquest. 
The voice of our Lord had re-echoed the prophecy of Daniel, 
that " Jerusalem should be trodden down of ; the Gentiles, till 
the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled y" and God's 
providence had already given warning of the fate of heathen- 
ism in the burning of the Capitol eight months before the de- 
struction of the Temple. The lesson is well pointed by the 
historian of the Roman Empire : — " Palestine was the cradle 
of the Gospel: the Jews the people first divinely appointed 
to expound it. The destruction— never to be repaired — of 
their material Temple cut the cords which bound the new faith 
to its local habitation, and launched it, under the hand of 
Providence, on its career of spiritual conquest; while the 
boasted restoration of the Capitol was a vain attempt to re- 
tain hold of the past, to revive the lost or perishing, to re- 
C c 



650 



Establishment of Christianity. 



Chap. XIX 



attach to new conditions of thought an outworn creed 01 
antiquity." 168 

Thus it is that the destruction of Jerusalem may well be 
called the coming of the Son of Man, not only in just judgment 
upon those who had rejected him ; not only as a sovereign 
visits with desolation a rebellious province that has refused 
jl offers of mercy : but as the completion of the first great 
st-^p in the establishment of his kingdom upon earth. And 
si ace this is the most momentous revolutionary epoch in the 
r< ligious history of the world, that ever was or that ever shall 
be, it is fitly made, in the rest of the discourse, the type of the 
" coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven with 
power and great glory," to destroy all that is earthly and cor- 
rupt in the Church and world, to " gather his elect from the 
four winds of heaven," to judge the quick and the dead, and 
to establish his everlasting kingdom. 169 



1 B Merivale, vi. p. 608. 

18: ' We have purposely avoided all 
attempts to discriminate between the 
portions of this great prophecy that 
refer to the catastrophe of Jerusalem 
and to the Last Advent of Christ ; 
4 sigarding the latter not as — what 
*ome writers call it — "a new topic," 
'.atroduced at a definite point, but as 
one which, so to speak, underlies (or 
rather predominates over) the whole, 
coming out incidentally in several 
places, and decisively in the grand 
dimax, and especially in Matt, xxv., 
which is an integral part of the dis- 
course. This view, besides being 
that which alone does justice to the 
whole spirit of the discourse, removes 
the difficulty created by the interposi- 
tion of passages which can not but 
refer to the greater event (Matt. 



! xxiv. 30, 31 ; Mark xiii. 26, 27) be- 
j tween those that describe the lesser. 
i It deserves notice how much of the 
| discourse is founded on the imagery 
j in which the ancient pi*ophets describe 
I civil commotions and historical events. 
(See Is. xiii. 9, foil., xix, 1, 5, foil. ; 
xxxiv. 2, 4, foil. ; Ezek. xxxii. 2, 7 ; 
Ps. xviii. 7-14, lxviii. l,foll.) Some 
commentators include within the 
scope of the prophecy not only the 
destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, 
but the still more complete extir- 
pation of the Jews of Palestine in 
the war of Barcocheba (the " Son 
of a Star") under Hadrian, which 
ended in the foundation of the Po- 
man colony of iElia Capitolina, oi? 
the site of Jerusalem, with a temple 
of Jupiter in place of the Sanctuarj 
on Zion. 



Chap. XIX. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



651 



NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



(A.) 



HYMEN^EUS AND 
HERESY. 



HIS 



The name of Hymen^eus occurs 
twice in the correspondence between 
St. Paul and Timothy ; the first 
time classed with Alexander, and 
with him "delivered to Satan, that 
they might learn not to blaspheme " 
(1 Tim. i. 20) ; and the second time 
classed with Philetus, and with him 
charged with having "erred con- 
cerning the truth, saying that the res- 
urrection is past already," and there- 
by "overthrown the faith of some" 
(2 Tim. ii. 17, IS). These latter ex- 
pressions, coupled with "the ship- 
wreck of faith " attributed to Hyme- 
nseus in the context of the former 
passage (ver. 19), surely warrant our 
understanding both passages of the 
same person, notwithstanding the in- 
terval between the dates of the two let- 
ters. When the first was written, he 
had already made one proselyte ; be- 
fore the second was penned, he had 
seduced another : and if so, the only 
points further to be considered are, 
the error attributed to him, and the 
sentence imposed upon him. 

I. The error attributed to him was 
'one that had been in part appro- 
priated from others, and has fre- 
quently been revived since with ad- 
ditions. What initation was to the 
Pythagoreans, wisdom to the Stoics, 
science to the followers of Plato, con- 
templation to the Peripatetics, that 



"knowledge" (yvuucc) was to the 
Gnostics. As there were likewise in 
the Greek schools those who looked 
forward to a complete restoration of 
all things (aTro/cardcrraaic) so there 
was "a regeneration" (Tit. iii. 5; 
Matt. xix. 28), "a new creation" 
(2 Cor. v. 17, see Alford ad loc. ; 
Kev. xxi. 1), "a kingdom of heaven 
and of Messiah or Christ " (Matt. 
xiii. ; Rev. vii.) — and herein popular 
belief among the Jews coincided — 
unequivocally propounded in the N. 
T. ; but here with this remarkable 
difference, namely, that, in a great 
measure, it was present as well as 
futm-e — the same thing in germ that 
was to be had in perfection event- 
ually. " The kingdom of God is 
within you," said our Lord (Luke 
xvii. 21). "He that is spiritual 
judgeth all things," said St. Paul (1 
Cor. ii. 15). "He that is born of 
God can not sin," said St. John (1 
Ep. iii. 9). There are likewise two 
deaths and two resurrections spoken 
of in the N. T. ; the first of each 
eort, that of the soul to and from sin 
(John iii. 3-8), " the hour which now 
is " (ibid. v. 24, 25) ; the second, 
that of the body to and from corrup- 
tion (1 Cor. xv. 36-44 ; also John v. 
28, 29), which last is prospective. 
Now as the doctrine of the resurrec-. 
tion of the body was found to involve 
immense difficulties even in those 
early days (Acts xvii. 32 ; 1 Cor. xv. 
35) ; while, on the other hand, there 



652 



Notes and Illustrations. 



Chap. XIX 



was so great a predisposition in the 
then current philosophy (not even ex- 
tinct now) to magnify the excellence 
of the soul ahove that of its earthly 
tabernacle, it was at once the easier 
and more attractive course to insist 
upon and argue from the force of 
those passages of Holy Scripture 
which enlarge upon the glories of the 
spiritual life that now is, under 
Christ, and to pass over or explain 
away allegorically all that refers to a 
future state in connection with the 
resurrection of the body. In this 
manner we may derive the first errors 
of the Gnostics, of whom Hymenceus 
was one of the earliest. They were 
on the spread when St. John wrote ; 
and his grand-disciple, St. Irenseus, 
compiled a voluminous work against 
them (Adv. Hce?\). A good account 
of their full development is given by 
Gieseler, E. H., Per. I., Div. I. § 44, 
et. seq. 

II. As regards the sentence passed 
upon him — it has been asserted by 
some writers of eminence (see Corn. 
a Lapide ad I Cor. v. 5) that the 
"delivering to Satan" is a mere 
synonym for ecclesiastical excommu- 
nication. Such can hardly be the 
case. The Apostles possessed many 
extraordinary prerogatives, which 
none have since arrogated. Even the 
title which they bore hag been set 
apart to them ever since. The shak- 
ing off the dust of their feet against 
a city that would not receive them 
(Matt. x. 14), even though the same 
injunction was afterward given to the 
Seventy (Luke x. 11), and which St. 
Paul found it necessary to act upon 
twice in the course of his ministry 
(Acts xiii. 51, and xviii. 6), has 
never been a practice since with Chris- 
tian ministers. "Anathema," says 
Bingham, "is a word that occurs 
frequently in the ancient canons" 



(Antiq. xvi. 2, 1G), but the form 
"Anathema maranatha " is one that 
none have ever ventured upon since 
St. Paul (1 Cor. xvi. 22). As the 
Apostles healed all manner of bodily 
infirmities, so they seem to have pos- 
sessed and exercised the same power 
in inflicting them — a power far too 
perilous to be continued when the 
manifold exigences of the Apostolical 
age had passed away. Ananias and 
Sapphira both fell down dead at 
the rebuke of St. Peter (Acts v. 5, 
10) ; two words from the same lips, 
" Tabitha, arise," sufficed to raise 
Dorcas from the dead (ibid. ix. 40.) 
St. Paul's first act in entering upon 
his ministry was to strike Elymas the 
sorcerer with blindness, his own 
sight having been restored to him 
through the medium of a disciple 
(ibid. ix. 17, and xiii. 11) ; while 
soon afterward we read of his heal- 
ing the cripple of Lystra (ibid. xiv. 
8). Even apart from actual inter- 
vention by the Apostles, bodily visit- 
ations are spoken of in the case of 
those who approached the Lord's 
Supper unworthily, when as yet no 
discipline had been established : 'Tor 
this cause many are weak and sickly 
among you, and a good number 
(luavol, in the former case it is noXXoi) 
sleep " (1 Cor. xi. 30). 

On the other hand, Satan was held 
to be the instrument or executioner 
of all these visitations. Such is the 
character assigned to him in the 
book of Job (i. 6-12, ii. 1-7). Simi- 
lar agencies are described 1 K. xxii. 
19-22, and 1 Chr. xxi. 1. In Ps. 
lxxviii. 49, such are the causes to 
which the plagues of Egypt are as- 
signed. Even our Lord submitted to 
be assailed by him more than once 
(Matt. iv. 1-10: Luke iv. 13 says, 
"departed from him for a season "); 
and " a messenger of Satan was sent 



Chap. XIX. 



Notes and Illustrations. 



653 



to buffet " the very Apostle whose act 
of delivering another to the same 
power is now under discussion. At 
the same time large powers over the 
world of spirits were authoritatively 
conveyed by our Lord to his im- 
mediate followers (to the Twelve, 
Luke ix. 1 ; to the Seventy, as the 
results showed, ibid. x. 17-20). 



(B.) 



THE 



AUTHORITIES FOR 
LIFE OF ST. PAUL. 

A very long catalogue might be 
made of authors who have written on 
St. Paul ; among whom the follow- 
ing may be recommended as of some 
independent value. In English, the 
work of Messrs. Conybcarc and How- 
son, on the Life and Epistles of St. 
Paul, is at once, the most comprehen- 
sive and the most popular. Among 
Commentaries, those of Professor 
Jowett on the Epistles to the Thes- 
salonians, Galatians, and Romans, 
and of Dean Stanley on the Epistles 
to the Corinthians, are expressly de- 
signed to throw light on the Apostle's 
character and work. The general 
Commentaries of Dean Alford and 
Dr. Wordsworth include abundant 
matter upon every thing relating to 
St. Paul. So does Dr. Davidson's 
Introduction to the New Testament, 
whitf" gives also in great profusion 



the opinions of all former critics, 
English and foreign. Paley^s well- 
known Horoz JPaulince ; Mr. Smith's 
work on the Voyage and Shipwreck of 
St. Paul; Mr. Tate's Continuous 
History of St. Paul; and Mr. Lcwin's 
St. Paul, are exclusively devoted to 
Pauline subjects. Of the many 
works in Avhich the Apostle's Life and 
Labors are treated from the popular 
and practical point of view, the last 
and best is the Rev. Thos. Binney's 
Lectures on St. Paul: his Life and 
Ministry, London, 1866. Among 
German critics and historians the fol- 
lowing may be named: — Ewald, in 
his Geschichte des Voltes Israel, vol. 
vi., and his Sendschreiben des Apos- 
tels Paulus ; Wieseler, Chronologie 
des Apostolischen Zeitalters, which is 
universally accepted as the best work 
on the chronology of St. Paul's life 
and times ; De Wette, in his Einlei- 
tung and his Exegetisches Handbuch ; 
Neander, Pfanzung und Leitung der 
Chris tl. Kirche ; works on Paulus, by 
Baur, Hcmsen, Schrader, Schneck- 
enburger ; and the Commentaries of 
Olshausen, Meyer, etc. In French, 
the work of Salvador on Jesus Christ 
et sa Doctrine, in the chapter St. 
Paul et CEglise, gives the view of a 
modern Jew ; and the Discourses on 
St. Paul, by M. de Pressense, are 
able and eloquent. 




Colossse. 



CHAPTER XX. 

SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS, 
AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. A.D. 70 AND ON- 
WARD. 



§1. St. John, the survivor of the fall of Jerusalem. § 2. Three period* 
of his history — His early life. § 3. His life with Christ — The Sons of 
Thunder — Peter and John. § 4. St. John in the Acts — His departure 
from Judaea. § 5. St. John at Ephesus — His exile to Patmos. § 0. 
Traditions of St. John — Legend and time of his death — His title of 
Theohgus — St. John the Evangelist. § 7. St. Andrew. § 8. James 
the son of Zebedee. § 9. St. James the Less — His identity with 
James the son of Alphaeus and James the brother of our Lord. §10 
The Apostle Jtjde, the same as Lebbajus and Thaddaeus. §11. Si- 
mon the Zealot, or the Canaanite — Identity of the epithets. § 12. 
Judas Iscariot, and his successor St. Matthias. § 13. Philip the 
Apostle. § 14. Bartholomew, the same as Nathanael. § 15. 
Matthew, the same as Levi the Publican. § 16. Thomas, surnamed 
Didymus. § 17. Barnabas. § 18. Writers of the Gospels: when 
styled Evangelists — i. John, surnamed Mark — ii. Luke. § 19. The 
Seven "Deacons" — i. St. Stephen — ii. Philip the Evangelist — iii 



Chap. XX. Early Life of St. John. 655 

Prochorus — iv. Nicanor — v. Timon — vi. Parmenas — vii. Nicolas, 
and the sect of the Nicolaitans. § 20. Titcs and Timothy. 

§ 1. The epoch of the destruction of Jerusalem, at which 
the Son of Man visited as a judge the city that had rejected 
its King, and inaugurated that spiritual kingdom upon earth 
which had now been established in churches gathered from 
every nation of the civilized world — that epoch does not close 
the New Testament History. One Apostle, of those whose 
names are prominent in the foundation of the Church, not 
only remained upon the earth to fulfill his work, but the more 
special part of that work — according to the views generally 
held of the date of his writings — may be said to have been but 
just beginning. It was not till the foundation of Christianity 
was historically complete, that the Apostle John was divine- 
ly commissioned to utter prophecies of its future course, and 
to develop in his Epistles and Gospel those doctrinal aspects 
of our Lord's teaching which were needed to correct the her- 
esies now rapidly taking their rise. As John the Baptist pro 
claimed the advent of Christ by the preaching of repentance 
to a degenerate people, so did John the Apostle recall church- 
es that had already forsaken their first love and declined into 
heresy and vice, to prepare for His second coming. 

§ 2. The prominent place filled by St. John in the Gospel 
history, as one of the four disciples who formed the innermost 
circle of our Lord's friends — the EkKeicrtav IkXekto-epoi — and 
the high distinction of being " the disciple whom Jesus loved," 
might raise our surprise at reading so little of him in the 
Acts, did we not reflect that his special work is to be sought 
for in his writings. The portion of his life which stands out 
in the broad day-light of the Gospels is preceded and followed 
by periods over which there brood the shadows of darkness 
and uncertainty. In the former, we discern only a few iso- 
lated facts, and are left to inference and conjecture to bring 
them together into something like a whole. In the latter we 
encounter, it is true, images more distinct, pictures more vivid ; 
but with these there is the doubt whether the distinctness and 
vividness are not misleading — whether half-traditional, half- 
mythical narrative has not taken the place of history. 

In most passages of the Gospels, John is named ir, 
connection with his brother James ; and from the prevailing 
order it is inferred that he was the younger. 1 Their father 
was Zebedee, their mother Salome, whom tradition makes the 



1 Matt. iv. 21, x. 3, xvii. 1, etc.; but in Luke ix. 28 the order is in* 
rcrted. 



656 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 



daughter of Joseph by his first wife, and consequently the half- 
sister to our Lord. 2 They were brought irp at Bethsaida, on 
the lake of Galilee, the town of that other pair of brothers — 
the sons of Jonas — who were to share with them the Lord's 
closest intimacy, and with whom we find them partners in 
their occupation of fishermen. 3 The mention of the " hired 
servants," of Salome's " substance," of John's " own house," 
implies a position removed by at least some steps from abso- 
lute poverty. 4 The fact that John was known to the high- 
priest Caiaphas — as that acquaintance was hardly likely to be 
formed with a disciple of Christ — suggests the probability of 
some early intimacy between the two families. Of Zebedee 
we know nothing beyond his interposing no refusal when his 
sons were called to leave him ; 5 and his disappearance from 
the Gospel narrative leads to the inference that his death set 
Salome free to join her children in ministering to the Lord. 
Her character presents to us the same great features that 
were conspicuous in her son. From her — who followed Jesus 
and ministered to him of her substance, 6 who sought for her 
two sons that they might sit, one on his right hand, the other on 
his left, in his kingdom 7 — he might well derive his strong affec- 
tions, his capacity for giving and receiving love, his eagerness 
for the speedy manifestation of the Messiah's kingdom. 

The early years of the Apostle were passed under this in- 
fluence. He would be trained in all that constituted the or- 
dinary education of Jewish boyhood. Though not taught in 
the schools of Jerusalem, and therefore, in later life liable to 
the reproach of having no recognized position as a teacher, no 
Rabbinical education, 8 he would yet be taught to read the Law 
and observe its precepts, to feed on the writings of the 
Prophets with the feeling that their accomplishment was not 
far off. For him too, as bound by the Law, there would be, 
at the age of thirteen, the periodical pilgrimages to Jerusalem. 
He would become familiar with the stately worship of the 
Temple, with the sacrifice, the incense, the altar, and the priest- 
ly robes. May we not conjecture that then the impres- 
sions were first made which never afterward wore off? As- 
suming that there is some harmony between the previous 
training of a prophet and the form of the visions presented to 
him, may we not recognize them in the rich liturgical imagery 



2 Epiphan. iii. Hceres. 78. By 
some recent critics she has been 
identified with the sister of Mary, 
the mother of Jesus, in John xix. 25. 

3 Luke v. 10. 



4 Mark i. 20; Luke viii. 3; John 
xix. 27. 5 Matt. iv. 21. 

6 Luke viii. 3. 7 Matt. xx. 20. 

* Acts iv. 13 : comp. chap, xix 
note 138. 



Chap. XX. Early Life of St. John. 657 

of the Apocalypse — in that union in one wonderful vision of 
all that was most wonderful and glorious in the prediction of 
the older prophets ? 

Concurrently with this there would be also the boy's out- 
ward life as sharing in his father's work. The great political 
changes which agitated the whole of Palestine would in some 
degree make themselves felt even in the village town in 
which he grew up. The Galilean fisherman must have heard, 
possibly with some sympathy, of the efforts made (when he 
was too young to join in them) by Judas of Gamala, as the 
great asserter of the freedom of Israel against their Roman rul- 
ers. Like other Jews, he would grow up with strong and 
bitter feeling against the neighboring Samaritans. Lastly, 
before we pass into a period of greater certainty, we must not 
forget to take into account that to this period of his life be- 
longs the commencement of that intimate fellowship with Si- 
mon Bar-jonah of which we afterward find so many proofs. 
That friendship may even then have been, in countless ways, 
fruitful for good upon the hearts of both. 

§ 3. We have already seen, in the history of our Saviour's 
life, that John was probably one of the two disciples of John 
the Baptist (the other being Andrew) who were the first to 
obey their Master's direction to the " Lamb of God," and we 
have traced the chief incidents in his course as the disciple 
of Jesus Christ. Of the four who enjoyed their Lord's es- 
pecial intimacy, while Peter appears as the leader of the apos- 
tolic band, to John belongs the higher distinction of being 
"the disciple whom Jesus loved;" and this love is returned 
with a more single undivided heart by him than by any other. 
If Peter is the (piXoxpiarog, John is the QiXiriaovg* Some strik- 
ing facts indicate why this was so, — what was the character 
thus worthy of the love of Jesus of Nazareth. They hardly 
sustain the popular notion, which is fostered by the received 
types of Christian art, of a nature gentle, yielding, effeminate. 
The name Boanerges implies a vehemence, zeal, intensity, 
which gave to those who bore it the might of Sons of Thun- 
der. 10 That spirit broke out once and again, — when they 
joined their mother in asking for the highest places in the 
kingdom of their Master, and declared that they were able to 
drink of the cup that he drank, and to be baptized with the 
baptism that he was baptized with, 11 — when they rebuked one 
who cast out devils in their Lord's name, 12 because he was not 



9 Grrotius, Proleg. in Joann. n Matt. xx. 20-24 ; Mark x. 35-4L 

*° Mark iii. 17. 1: Luke ix. 49. 

C C 2 



658 The Apostles and Evangelists. Chap. XX, 

of their company, — when they sought to call down fire from 
heaven upon a village of the Samaritans. 13 

This energy added to the love of him who reclined at the 
Last Supper with his head upon his Master's breast the cour- 
age to follow him into the council-chamber of Caiaphas, and 
even the praetorium of Pilate, 14 and to stand by his cross — with 
Christ's mother and his own, and Mary Magdalene — when all 
the rest forsook him and fled. There he received the sa- 
cred trust, which must have influenced all his subsequent home 
life, giving him a second mother in the blessed Virgin. He 
gave a home also to the penitent Peter ; and when they, first 
of the Apostles, learned from Mary Magdalene the resurrec- 
tion of the Lord, it throws a light upon their respective char- 
acters that John is the more impetuous, running on most ea- 
gerly to the rock-tomb ; Peter, the less restrained by awe, is 
the first to enter in and look. 15 So, too, when Jesus appeared 
to them by the Lake of Galilee, John is the first to recognize, 
in the dim form seen in the morning twilight, the presence of 
his risen Lord ; Peter the first to plunge into the water and 
swim toward the shore where he stood calling to them. 16 The 
last words of the Gospel reveal to us the deep affection 
which united the two friends. It is not enough for Peter to 
know his own future. That at once suggests the question — 
"Lord, and what shall this man do?" The reply of Jesus, 
which was perverted into the legends that gather about the 
close of St. John's life, surely means something more than a 
rebuke of Peter's curiosity, The words — " If I will that he 
tarry till I come " — are doubtless a prophecy, as well as an 
hypothesis; and they seem to intimate that, alone of all the 
Apostles, John should survive that catastrophe of the Old Dis- 
pensation in the destruction of Jerusalem, which made way 
for Christ's coming in his kingdom. 17 

§ 4. The association of Peter and John appears still in the 
opening scenes of the Acts — their attendance together to wor- 
ship in the Temple — the miracle of healing the blind man — 
the confessorship before the Sanhedrim 18 — the gift of the 
Holy Ghost to those very Samaritans on whom John once 
wished to call down fire from heaven. 19 This is his last ap- 
pearance in the Acts ; and he is not mentioned either in con- 
nection with Paul's first visit to Jerusalem after his conver- 
sion, 20 nor as engaged in labors like those of Peter at Lydda, 



Luke xix. 54. 

John xviii. 1G, 19, 28 

John xx. 4-G : comp. p. 350 



17 John xxi. 20-23. 

18 Acts iii., iv. 19 Acts viii. 14. 
Acts xix. 26, 27. Gal. i. 19 



John xxi. 7. | adds a proof that Paul did not sea 



Chat. XX. Association of Peter and John. 659 

Joppa, and Caesarea, nor in the persecution in which the 
sword of Herod divided him from his brother James. Nei- 
ther does St. John appear as taking an active part in the so- 
called " Council of Jerusalem;" 21 but he was present at the 
private conference of the Apostles with Paul and Barnabas ; 
and Paul names John, with James and Cephas, as a " pillar " 
of the Church, and as one of those whose mission it was to 
" go to the circumcision." 22 

This one passage proves that the scene of John's labors 
ohus far was Jerusalem and Judssa. To the work of teach- 
ing, organizing, and exhorting the Hebrew churches, may 
have been added special calls, like that which had drawn him 
with Peter to Samaria. The fulfillment of the solemn charge 
entrusted to John may have led him to a life of loving and 
reverent thought rather than to one of conspicuous activity. 
We may, at all events, feel sure that, it was a time in which 
the natural elements of his character, with all their fiery en- 
ergy, were being purified and mellowed, rising step by step 
to that high serenity which we find perfected in ' the closing 
portion of his life. The tradition which ascribes to him a 
life of celibacy 23 receives some confirmation from the ab- 
sence of his name in 1 Cor. ix. 5. It harmonizes with all we 
know of his character, to think of his heart as so absorbed in 
the higher and diviner love that there was no room left for 
the lower and the human. 

§ 5. After a long interval, the Apostle re-appears in that 
close connection with the churches of Asia Minor, which is 
attested alike by the Apocalypse and by the uniform tradi- 
tion of the Church. It is a natural conjecture that he re- 
mained in Judaea till the death of the Virgin released him 
from his trust. Tradition carries him from Judaea to Ephe- 
sus ; but it gives us no clear light as to the motives of his re- 
moval : the time is so variously fixed, under Claudius, Nero, 
or even Domitian, as to prove that nothing certain was 
known ; and our only safe conclusion is to reject the two 
extremes. 24 

The Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul absolutely exclude the 
idea of any connection of St. John with Ephesus down to 
their date, that is to a.d. 66 at the earliest. On the other 



John on this occasion ; but it does 
not follow that the latter was not at 
Jerusalem. It is rather implied that 
Paul purposely ahstained from seeing 
anv of the Apostles save Peter and 



James. 21 Actsxv. ! probable date. 



22 Gal. ii. 9. 

23 Tertullian, de Manor/, c. xiii. 

24 Lampe fixes a.d. 66, when Je- 
rusalem was besieged by- the Eoman 
forces under Cestius, as the most 



660 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 



hand it seems almost a necessary inference, from St. John's 
Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia, that the Apostle who 
writes to them with such high authority and such familiar 
knowledge of their condition, had already labored some time 
among them. This is in accordance with the analogy of St. 
Paul's letters to churches which he had recently visited — fo» 
example, the Thessalonians and G-alatians; but these cases 
may also warn us not to exaggerate the time of the previous 
ministration. It is the plain meaning of John's own words, 
in the opening of the A])ocalypse, that he had been banished 
as a Christian confessor to the island of Patmos at a time of 
general persecution ; 25 and the place seems to suggest that 
he had been arrested in the province of Asia. 20 Though his 
banishment may have resulted from some more local and 
temporary cause, the question has been generally narrowed 
to the issue between the two great persecutions under Nero 
and Domitian. The consent of Christian antiquity is in fa- 
vor of the latter view : the former is a modern theory, based 
on the internal evidence of the Book, and connected w r ith a 
particular scheme of interpretation. 27 Some of those who 
hold the later date regard the Apocalypse as the latest book 



25 Rev. i. 9. " Your companion in 
tribulation." 

26 The rocky islet of Patmos is one 
of the group called Sporades (the 
scattered isles) in the Icarian Sea 
(the S.E. part of the JEgaean), at 
about equal distances S. of Samos 
and W. of Cape Posidium on the 
Carian coast. It must have been 
conspicuous on the right, when St. 
Paul was sailing from Samos to Cos. 
Its circuit was reckoned about thir- 
ty Roman miles (twenty-eight En- 
glish). It has been fully described 
by the recent German and French 
travelers, Ross and Guerin. The as- 
pect of the island is peculiarly rugged 
and bare. 

Such a scene of banishment for St. 
John is quite in harmony with what 
we read of the custom of the period. 
It was the common practice to send 
exiles to the most rocky and desolate 
islands ( " in asperrimas insularum "). 
See Suet. Tit. 8; Juv. Sat. i. 73. 
Such a scene too was suitable (if we 
may presume to say so) to the sublime 
and awful Revelation which the 



Apostle received there. It is possi- 
ble, indeed, that there was more 
greenness in Patmos formerly than 
now. Its name in the Middle Ages 
was JPalmosa. But this has now al- 
most entirely given place to the old 
classical name; and there is just one 
palm-tree in the island, in a valley 
which is called "the Saint's Garden " 
(6 ktjttoc rov 'Oaiov). Here and there 
are a few poor olives, about a score 
of cypresses, and other trees in the 
same scanty proportion. 

Patmos is divided into two nearly 
equal parts, a northern and a south- 
ern, by a very narrow isthmus, where, 
on the east side, are the harbor and 
the town. On the hill to the south, 
crowning a commanding height, is the 
celebrated monastery, which bears 
the name of "John the Divine." 
Half-way up the ascent is the cave or 
grotto where tradition says that St. 
John received the Revelation, and 
which is still called to cxrjlaiov -fie, 
'A7roK.a?,vipetjr. 

27 See the Appendix on the Book?, 
of the New Testament, 



Chap. XX. Traditions Relating to St. John. 661 

of the New Testament ; but others place the Gospel and tne 
Epistles after it. 

§ 6. The tradition of the Church uniformly represents the 
Apostle as spending his last days at Ephesus, and the general 
outline of his work there may be gathered- from the Revela- 
tion and the Epistles. The facts which these writings assert 
or imply are — (1) that, having come to Ephesus, some perse- 
cution, local or general, drove him to Patmos : 28 (2) that the 
Seven Churches, of which Asia was the centre, were special 
objects of his solicitude : 29 (3) that in his work he had to en- 
counter men who denied the truth on which his faith rest- 
ed ; 30 and others who, with a railing and malignant temper, 
disputed his authority. 31 If to this we add that he must 
have outlived all, or nearly all, of those who had been the 
friends and companions even of his maturer years — that this 
lingering age gave strength to an old imagination that his 
Lord had promised him immortality 32 — that, as if remember- 
ing the actual words which had been thus perverted, the long- 
ing of his soul gathered itself up in the cry, " Even so, come, 
Lord Jesus " 33 — that from some who spoke with authority he 
received a solemn attestation of the confidence they reposed 
in him 34 — we have stated all that has any claim to the charac 
ter of historical truth. 

The picture which tradition fills up for us has the merit 
of being full and vivid, but it blends together, without much 
regard to harmony, things probable and improbable. He is 
shipwrecked off Ephesus, and arrives there in time to check 
the progress of the heresies which sprang up after St. Paul's 
departure. Then, or at a later period, he numbers among his 
disciples men like Polycarp, Papias, Ignatius. In the perse- 
cution under Domitian he is taken to Rome, and there, by his 
boldness, though not by death, gains the crown of martyrdom. 
The boiling oil into which he is thrown has no power to hurt 
him. He is then sent to labor in the mines, and Patmos is 
the place of his exile. The accession of Nerva frees him 
from danger, and he returns to Ephesus. There he settles 
the canon of the Gospel history by formally attesting the 
truth of the first three Gospels, and writing his own to sup- 
ply what they left wanting. The elders of the Church are 
gathered together, and St. John, as by a sudden inspiration, 
begins with the wonderful opening, "In the beginning was 
the Word." Heresies continue to show themselves, b«t he 

28 Rev. i. 9. M Rev. i. 11. j 32 John xxi. 23. 

30 1 John iv. 1 ; 2 John 7. 33 Rev. xxii. 20, 

31 3 John 9, 10. 34 John xxi. 24. 



662 The AposUes and Evangelists. Chap. XX 

meets them with the strongest possible protest. He refuses 
to pass under the same roof (that of the public baths of 
Ephesus) as their foremost leader, lest the house should fall 
down on them and crush them. 35 Through his agency the 
great temple of Artemis (Diana) is at length reft of its mag- 
nificence, and even leveled with the ground ! He intro- 
duces and perpetuates the Jewish mode of celebrating East- 
sr. At Ephesus, if not before, as one who was a true priest 
of the Lord, he bore on his brow the plate of gold (ireTaXov) 
with the sacred name engraved on it, which was the badge 
of the Jewish pontiff. In strange contrast with this ideal 
exaltation, a later tradition tells us how the old man used to 
find pleasure in the playfulness and fondness of a favorite 
bird, and how he defended himself against the charge of un- 
worthy trifling by the familiar apologue of the bow that must 
sometimes be unbent. 

More true to the New Testament character of the Apos- 
tle is the story, told by Clement of Alexandria, of his spe- 
cial and loving interest in the younger members of his 
flock ; of his eagerness and courage in the attempt to rescue 
one of them who had fallen into evil courses. The scene of 
the old and loving man, standing face to face with the outlaw 
chief whom, in days gone by, he had baptized, and winning 
him to repentance, is one which we could gladly look on as 
belonging to his actual life. 

Not less beautiful is that other scene which comes before 
us as the last act of his life. When all capacity to work and 
teach is gone — when there is no strength even to stand — the 
spirit still retains the power to love, and the lips are still 
open to repeat, without change and variation, the command 
which summed up all his Master's will — " Little children, 
love one another." 

The very time of the Apostle's death lies within the region 
of conjecture rather than of history, and the dates that have 
been assigned for it range from a.d. 89 to a.d. 120. 

In relation to Christian doctrine, St. John is, as in the title 
of the Apocalypse, " John the Holy Divine" — the Theolo- 
^us — not in the modern sense of a theologian, but from his 



85 Eusebius and Ircnauts make Ce- 
rinthus the heretic. In Ejiiphanius, 
Ebion is the hero of the story. To 
modern feelings the anecdote may 
seem at variance with the character 



the principle of 2 John 10. To the 
mind of Epiphanius there was a dif- 
ficulty of another kind. Nothing 
less than a special inspiration could 
account for such a departure from 



of the Apostle of Love, but it is hardly an ascetic life as going to a bath at 
more than the development in act of ! all. 



Chap. XX, Title of ""TJieologus." 663 

witness that "the Word was God." 36 This also was the 
fruit of his intimate converse with his Lord, and of a spirit 
fitted for such fellowship. Nowhere is the vision of the 
Eternal Word, "the glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father," so unclouded : nowhere are there such personal 
reminiscences of the Christ in his most distinctively human 
characteristics. It was this union of the two aspects of the 
Truth which made him the instinctive opponent of all forms 
of a mystical or logical or docetic Gnosticism. It was a true 
feeling which led the later interpreters of the mysterious 
forms of the four living creatures round the throne — depart- 
ing in this instance from the earlier traditions — to see in him 
the Eagle that soars into the highest heaven, and looks upon 
the unclouded sun. 37 Descending from the regions of fancy 
to those facts on which the truth of the Gospel rests, it is 
this testimony to Christ that is so emphatically asserted alike 
in the opening of his General Epistle and in what we may 
call the attestation clause of his Gospel — whether that clause 
was penned by an inspired self-consciousness, or added as the 
testimony of those among whom he lived and wrote : — " This 
is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote 
these things, and ice knoio that his testimony is true." s ^JL~ 

§ 7.- When John the Baptist directed his disciples to* the 
Lamb of God, " one of the two that heard John and followed 
Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother ;" and, in seeking 
out his own brother Simon, he set the first example of 
brotherhood in Christ, and was the first to proclaim, " We 
have found the Messiah." 39 The apparent discrepancy in 
Matt. iv. 1 8 ff ., and Mark 1 6 if., where the two appear to have 



36 It is in accordance with the old 
Hebrew system of significant sur- 
names, that the proposition debr i/v 6 
AoyoQ was condensed into the epithet 
of deo/.oyor. This at least is the ex- 
planation generally received ; but the 
epithet of a " discourser of divine 
things," which had already been con- 
ferred upon Orpheus, Homer, and 
Hesiod, may have been applied in a 
higher sense to the seer of the Apoc- 
alypse. 

The title has been perpetuated in 
the name of the modern village on 
the site of Ephesns, Ayasahik="Ayior 
QeoMyoc Just in the same way, 
Bethany, the city of Lazarus, is call 



bron, the chief abode of Abraham, 
ELHalil, the Friend (i.e., of God). 

37 Rev. iv. 7. The older interpre- 
tation makes Mark answer to the 
eagle, and John to the lion. 

38 John xxi. 24. The truer, as 
well as simpler view, seems to be that 
these words are the writer's own, as 
is evidently the case with the parallel 
passage in chap. xix. 35 : — " And he 
that saw it bare record, and his rec- 
ord is true, and he knoweih that he 
saith true, that ye might believe." 

39 John i. 40, 41. The name An- 
dreas occurs in Greek writers ; it is 
found in Dion Cassius Ixviii. 32, as 
the name of a Cvrenian Jew in the 



id el-Azariyeh, or Lazarieh, and He- 1 reign of Trajan, 



664 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 



been called together, is no real one, St. John relating the first 
introduction of the brothers to Jesus, the other Evangelists 
their formal call to follow him in his ministry. In the cata- 
logue of the Apostles, Andrew appears, in Matt. x. 2, Luke vi 
14, second, next after his brother Peter; but in Mark iii. 16, 
Acts i. 14, fourth, next after the three, Peter, James and John, 
and in company with Philij). And this appears to have been 
his real place of dignity among the Apostles; for in Mark 
xiii. 3, we find Peter, James, John and Andrew inquiring 
privately of our Lord about his coming; and in John xii. 22, 
when certain Greeks wished for an interview with Jesus, they 
applied through Andrew, who consulted Philip, and in com- 
pany with him made the request known to our Lord. This 
last circumstance, combined with the Greek character of both 
their names, may perhaps point to some slight shade of Hel- 
lenistic connection on the part of the two Apostles ; though 
it is extremely improbable that any of the Twelve were Hel- 
lenists in the proper sense. On the occasion of the five 
thousand in the wilderness wanting nourishment, it is Andrew 
who points out the little lad with the five barley loaves and 
the two fishes. Scripture relates nothing of him beyond 
these scattered notices. Whether he was Peter's elder or 
younger brother is uncertain. Except in the catalogue (i. 14), 
his name does not occur once in the Acts. The traditions 
about him are various. Eusebius 40 makes him preach in 
Scythia; Jerome 41 and Theodoret 42 in Achaia (Greece); 
Nicephorus 43 in Asia Minor and Thrace. He is said to have 
been crucified, at Patrre in Achaia, on a crux decussata ( X ) ; 
but this is doubted by many. Eusebius 44 speaks of an 
apocryphal Acts of Andrew. 

§ 8. James, the Son of Zebedee, 45 and brother of John, 



40 ILK iii. 1. 

41 Ep. 148, ad Marc. 

42 ad Psalm .cxvi. 
i3 H.E. ii. 39. 

44 H.E. iii. 25. 

45 The name is the Greek form of 
Jacob, and it is somewhat remarka- 
ble that it now re-appears for the first 
time since the patriarch himself. In 
the unchangeable East, St. James is 
still St. Jacob — Mar Yakoob ; but no 
sooner had the name left the shores 
of Palestine than it underwent a se- 
ries of curious and interesting changes 
probably unparalleled in any other 
case. To the Greeks it became 



'lantofioc, with the accent on the first 
syllable ; to the Latins, Jacobus, 
doubtless similarly accented, since in 
Italian it is Idcomo or Gidcomo. In 
Spain it assumed two forms, appar- 
ently of different origins : — Iago — in 
modern Spanish, Diego, Portuguese, 

j Tiago — and Hay me or Jay me, pro- 
nounced Hayme, with a strong initial 

! guttural. In France it became 
Jacques, but another form was Jame, 
which appears in the metrical Life of 
St. Thomas a Becketby Gamier (a.d. 
1170-74), quoted in Robinson's Beck- 
et, p. 139, note. From this last the 
transition to our James is easy. 



Chap. XX. 



James, the Son of Zebedee. 



665 



another of the four who formed, so to speak, the inner circle 
of the Apostolic band, is the only one of the Apostles of 
whose life and death we can write with certainty. The little 
that we know of him we have on the authority of Scripture. 
All else that is reported is idle legend, with the possible ex- 
ception of one tale, handed down by Clement of Alexandria to 
Eusebius, and by Eusebius to us. There is no fear of con- 
founding the St. James of the New Testament with the hero 
of Compostella. 

Of St. James's early life we know nothing. We first hear 
of him in a.d. 27, when he was called to be our Lord's disci- 
ple ; and he disappears from view in a.d. 44, when he suffer- 
ed martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I. He does 
not appear in the Gospel narrative till the second call of the 
disciples at the Lake of Galilee. 46 For a full year we lose 
sight of him. He is then, in the spring of a.d. 28, called to 
the apostleship with his eleven brethren. 47 In the list of the 
Apostles given us by St. Mark, and in the book of Acts, his 
name occurs next to that of Simon Peter : in the Gospels of 
St. Matthew and St. Luke it comes third. It is clear that in 
these lists the names are not placed at random. In all four, 
the names of Peter, Andrew, James and John are placed 
first; and it is plain that these four Apostles were at the 
head of the twelve throughout. Thus we see that Peter, 
James and John alone were admitted to the miracle of 
the raising of Jairus's daughter. 48 The same three Apostles 
alone were permitted to be present at the Transfiguration. 49 
The same three alone were allowed to witness the Agony. 50 
And it is Peter, James, John and Andrew who ask our Lord 
for an explanation of his dark sayings with regard to the end 
of the world and his second coming. 51 It is worthy of notice 
that in all these places, with one exception, 52 the name of 
James is put before that of John, and that John is twice de- 
scribed as " the brother of James." 53 This would appear to 
imply that at this time James, either from age or character, 
took a higher position than his brother. On the last occasion 
on which St. James is mentioned we find this position re- 

47 Matt. x. 2 ; Mark iii. 14 ; Luke 
vi. 13; Acts i. 13. 

48 Mark v. 37; Luke viii. 51. 

49 Matt. xvii. 1 ; Mark ix. 2 ; Luke 
ix. 28. 

50 Matt. xxvi. 37 ; Mark xiv. 33, 

51 Mark xiii. 3. 

52 Lake ix. 28. 
SJ Mark v. 37 ; Matt. xvii. 1 



' 6 Matt. iv. 18-22 ; Mark i. 16-20 ; 
Luke v. 1-11. An ecclesiastical tra- 
dition, of uncertain date, places the 
residence of Zebedee and the birth 
£>f St. James at Jnphia, now Yafa, 
near Nazareth. Hence that village 
is commonly known to the members 
of the Latin Church in that district 
as San Giacoi/io. 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX 



versed. That the prominence of these three Apostles was 
founded on personal character (as out of every twelve per- 
sons there must be two or three to take the lead), and that it 
was not an office held by them, can scarcely be doubted. 

It would seem to have been at the time of the appointment 
of the twelve Apostles that the name of Boanerges was 
given to the sons of Zebedee. It might, however, like Si- 
mon's name of Peter, have been conferred before. This name 
plainly was not bestowed upon them because they heard the 
voice like thunder from the cloud (Jerome), nor because of 
any peculiar majesty in their persons or impressiveness in 
their preaching ; but it was, like the name given to Simon, at 
once descriptive and prophetic. The "Rockman" had a 
natural strength, which was described by his title, and he 
was to have a divine strength, predicted by the same title. In 
the same way the " Sons of Thunder " had a burning and im- 
petuous spirit, which twice exhibits itself in its unchastened 
form, 54 and which, when moulded by the Spirit of God, taking 
different shapes, led St. James to be the first Apostolic mar- 
tyr, and St. John to become in an especial manner the Apos- 
tle of Love. The occasions on which this natural charac- 
ter manifested itself have been noticed in speaking of St. 
John. 

From the time of the Agony in the Garden, a.d. 30, to the 
time of his martyrdom, a.d. 44, we know nothing of St. James 
except that after the Ascension he persevered in prayer with 
the other Apostles, and the women, and the Lord's brethren. 55 
In the year 44 Herod Agrippa I., son of Aristobulus, was 
ruler of all the dominions which at the death of his grand- 
father, Herod the Great, had been divided between Arche- 
laus, Antipas, Philip, and Lysanias. He had received from 
Caligula, Trachonitis in the year 37, Galilee and Peraaa in th^ 
year 40. On the accession of Claudius, in the year 41, he re 
ceived from him Idumaea, Samaria, and Judaea. This sover 
eign was at once a supple statesman and a stern Jew : 56 a 
king with not a few grand and kingly qualities, at the same 
time eaten up with Jewish pride — the type of a lay Pharisee. 
" He was very ambitious to oblige the people with donations," 
and " he was exactly careful in the observance of the laws of 
his country, keeping himself entirely pure, and not allowing 
one day to pass over his head without its appointed sacri- 
fice." 57 Policy and inclination would alike lead such a mon- 



M Luke ix. 54 ; Mark x. 37. 

55 Acts i. 13. 



56 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 6, § 7, xix, 
-8. 57 Joseph. Ant. xix. 7. § 3. 



Chap. XX. 



St. James the Less. 



667 



arch " to lay hands " (not " stretch forth his hands," A.V. Acts 
xii. 1) " on certain of the church ; " and accordingly, when the 
Passover of the year 44 had brought St. James and St. Peter 
to Jerusalem, he seized them both, considering doubtless that 
if he cut off the " Son of Thunder " and the " Rockman " the 
new sect would be more tractable or more weak under the 
presidency of James the Just, for whose character he prob- 
ably had a lingering and sincere respect. James was appre- 
hended first — his natural impetuosity of temper would seem 
to have urged him on even beyond Peter. And " Herod the 
king," the historian simply tells us, " killed James the brother 
of John with the sword." 5d This is all we know for certain 
of his death. 59 We may notice two things respecting it — 
first, that James is now described as the brother of John, 
whereas previously John had been described as the brother 
of James, showing that the reputation of John had increased, 
and that of James diminished, by the time that St. Luke 
wrote ; and secondly, that he perished not by stoning, but 
by the sword. The Jewish law laid down that if seducers to 
strange worship were few, they should be stoned ; if many, 
that they should be beheaded. Either therefore Herod in- 
tended that James's death should be the beginning of a san- 
guinary persecution, or he merely followed the Roman cus- 
tom of putting to death from preference. 00 

§ 9. The death of so prominent a champion left a huge gap 
in the ranks of the infant society, which was filled partly by 
St. James, the brother of our Lord, commonly called James 



58 Acts xii. 2. 

59 The great Armenian convent at 
Jerusalem on the so-called Mount 
Zion is dedicated to " St. James the 
son of Zebedee." The church of the 
convent, or rather a small chapel on 
its north-east side, occupies the tra- 
ditional site of his martyrdom. This, 
however, can hardly be the actual 
site (Williams, Holy City, ii. 558). 
Its most interesting possession is the 
chair of the Apostle, a venerable rel- 
ic, the age of which is perhaps trace- 
able as far back as the 4th century 
(Williams, 560). But as it would 
seem that it is believed to have be- 
longed to " the first Bishop of Jeru- 
salem," it is doubtful to which of the 
two Jameses the tradition would at- 
tach it. 

60 See Lightfoot, in loc. Clement 



of Alexandria relates, concerning St. 
James's martyrdom, that the prose- 
cutor was so moved by witnessing his 
bold confession that he declared him- 
self a Christian on the spot : accused 
and accuser were therefore hurried 
off together, and on the road the lat- 
ter begged St. James to grant him 
forgiveness ; after a moment's hesita- 
tion, the Apostle kissed him, saying, 
"Peace be to thee!" and they were 
beheaded together. For legends re- 
specting his death and his connection 
with Spain, see the Roman Breviary 
(in Fest. S. Jac. Ap.), in which the 
healing of a paralytic and the conver- 
sion of Hermogenes are attributed to 
him, and where it is asserted that he 
preached the Gospel in Spain, and 
that his remains were translated to 
Compostella. The legends are re- 



668 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 



the Less, or the Little, 0015 who now steps forth into greater 
prominence in Jerusalem, and partly by St. Paul, who had 
now been seven years a convert, and who shortly afterward 
set out on his first Apostolic journey. The position into 
which the former now comes forward leads us to depart from 
the order of the Gospel lists. We have already stated the rea- 
sons for identifying him with James, the son of Alphaeus. 01 Of 
the father of James, whose Hebrew name is rendered by Si 
Matthew and St. Mark Alphmus™ and by St. John Clopas™ 
we know nothing, except that he married Mary, the sister of 
the Virgin Mary, and had by her four sons and three or more 
daughters. 04 He appears to have died before the commence- 
ment of our Lord's ministry, and after his death it would 
seem that his wife and her sister, a widow like herself, and in 
poor circumstances, lived together in one house, generally at 
Nazareth, 65 but sometimes also at Capernaum 60 and Jerusa- 
lem. 67 It is probable that these cousins, or, as they were usual- 
ly called, brothers and sisters, of the Lord were older than 
himself ; as on one occasion we find them, with his mother, 
indignantly declaring that he was beside himself, and going 
out to " lay hold of him " and compel him to moderate his 
zeal in preaching, at least sufficiently " to eat bread." C8 This 
looks like the conduct of elders toward one younger than 
themselves. 

Of James individually we know nothing till the spring of 
the year 28, when we find him, together with his younger 
brother Jude, called to the Apostolate. It has been noticed 
that in all the four lists of the Apostles, James holds the same 
place, heading the third class, consisting of himself, Jude, Si- 
mon and Iscariot ; as Philip heads the second class, consist- 
ing of himself, Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew; and 
Simon Peter the first, consisting of himself, Andrew, James 
and John. 69 The fact of Jude being described by reference 



jected with contempt even by Catho- 
lic writers. Epiphanius, without giv- 
ing or probably having any authority 
for or against his statement, reports 
that St. James died unmarried, and 
that, like his namesake, he lived the 
life of a Nazarite. 

60 b Mark xiii. 40, 'Id/oj/3of 6 ui- 
Kpog. 

61 Chap.ix., Notes and Xllusti'ations 
(A). 

82 'AA^aZof. 

" s K2w7rdf . 



Joachim (?) = Anna (?) 

L 

I 



Mary = Clopas or Alpha? us 

I 



St. Mary 
the Vh-gin 

I I I i : I 

Jesus James Joses Jude Simon Three of 
more 
daughters. 

65 Matt. xiii. 55. 

66 John ii. 12. 

67 Acts i. 14. 

M Mark iii. 20, 21, 31. 
69 Alford, in Matt. x. 2. 



Chap. XX. St. James the Less. 669 

to James, 70 shows the name and reputation which James had, 
either at the time of the calling of the Apostles or at the time 
when St. Luke wrote. 

It is not likely (though far from impossible) thit James 
and Jude took part with their brothers and sisters, and the 
Virgin Mary, in trying " to lay hold on " Jesus in the autumn 
of the same year ; 71 and it is likely, though not certain, that it 
is of the other brothers and sisters, without these two, that 
St. John says, " Neither did his brethren believe on him," 72 
in the autumn of a.d. 29. 

We hear no more of James till after the Crucifixion and 
the Resurrection. At some time in the forty days that inter- 
vened between the Resurrection and the Ascension, the Lord 
appeared to him. This is not related by the Evangelists, but 
it is mentioned by St. Paul ; 73 and there never has been any 
doubt that it was to this James rather than to the son of 
Zebedee that the manifestation was vouchsafed. We may 
conjecture that it was for the purjDOse of strengthening him 
for the high ])Osition which he was soon to assume in Jerusa- 
lem, and of giving him the instructions on " the things per- 
taining to the kingdom of God," 74 which were necessary for 
his guidance, that the Lord thus showed himself to James. 
We can not fix the date of this appearance. It was probably 
only a few days before the Ascension ; after which we find 
James, Jude, and the rest of the Apostles, together with the 
Virgin Mary, Simon and Joses, in Jerusalem, awaiting in 
faith and prayer the outpouring of the Pentecostal gift. 

Again we lose sight of James for ten years, and when he 
appears once more it is in a far higher position than any that 
he has yet held. In the year 37 occurred the conversion of 
Saul. Three years after his conversion he paid his first visit 
to Jerusalem, but the Christians recollected what they had 
suffered at his hands, and feared to have any thing to do 
with him. Barnabas, at this time of far higher reputation 
than himself, took him by the hand, and introduced him to 
Peter and James, 75 and by their authority he was admitted 
into the society of the Christians, and allowed to associate 
freely with them during the fifteen days of his stay. Here 
we find James on a level with Peter, and with him deciding 
on the admission of St. Paul into fellowship with the Church 
at Jerusalem ; and from henceforth we always find him equal, 
or in his own department superior, to the very chief est Apos< 

70 'lovdac 'Iano)j3ov. f 73 1 Cor. xv. 7. 74 Acts i. 3. 

11 Mark iii. 21. 72 John vii. 5. 75 Acts ix. 27 ; Gal. i. 18, 19. 



670 The Apostles and Evangelists. Chap. XX. 

ties, Peter, John and Paul. For by this time he had been ap- 
pointed (at what exact date we know not) to preside over the 
infant Church in its most important centre, in a position 
equivalent to that of Bishop. This pre-eminence is evident 
throughout the after-history of the Apostles, whether we 
read it in the Acts, in the Epistles, or in ecclesiastical Avriters. 
Thus in the year 44, when Peter is released from prison, he 
desires that information of his escape may be given to 
"James, and to the brethren." 76 In the year 49 he presides 
at the Apostolic Council, and delivers the judgment of the 
Assembly, with the expression " Wherefore my sentence 
is." 77 In the same year (or perhaps in the year 51, on his 
fourth visit to Jerusalem) St. Paul recognizes James as one 
of the pillars of the Church, together with Cephas and 
John, 78 and places his name before them both. Shortly after- 
ward it is " certain who came from James," that is, from the 
mother Church of Jerusalem, designated by the name of its 
Bishop, who led Peter into tergiversation at Antioch. And 
in the year 57 Paul pays a formal visit to James in the pres- 
ence of all his presbyters, after having been previously wel- 
comed with joy the day before by the brethren in an unoffi- 
cial manner. 78 

Entirely accordant with these notices of Scripture is the uni 
versal testimony of Christian antiquity to the high office held 
by James in the Church of Jerusalem. That he was formally 
appointed Bishop of Jerusalem by the Lord himself, as re- 
ported by Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Proclus of Constantino- 
ple, and Photius, is not likely. Eusebius follows this account 
in a passage of his history, but says elsewhere that he was 
appointed by the Apostles. Clement of Alexandria is the 
first author who speaks of his Episcopate, and he alludes to 
it as a thing of which the chief Apostles, Peter, James and 
John, might well have been ambitious. The same Clement 
reports that the Lord, after his resurrection, delivered the 
gift of knowledge to James the Just, to John, and to Peter, 
who delivered it to the rest of the Apostles, and they to the 
Seventy. This at least shows the estimation in which James 
was held. But the author to whom we are chiefly indebted 
for an account of the life and death of James is Hegesippus 
(i. 6., Joseph), a Christian of Jewish origin, who lived in the 
middle of the second century. His narrative gives us such 
an insight into the position of St. James in the Church of 

70 Acts xii. 17. — 77 Aw b/i) Kplvo, Acts xv. 13, 19 ; sec St. Chrys. in loc.-^ 
78 Gal. ii. 9.— 79 Actsxxi. 18. 



Chap. XX. St. James the Less. 671 

Jerusalem, that it is best to let him relate it in his own 
words ; 

Tradition respecting James, as given by Hegesippus. — 
"With the Apostles, James, the brother of the Lord, suc- 
ceeds to the charge of the Church — that James who has been 
called Just from the time of the Lord to our own days, for 
there were many of the name of James. He was holy from 
his mother's womb, he drank not wine or strong drink, nor 
did he eat animal food ; a razor came not upon his head ; he 
did not anoint himself with oil ; he did not use the bath. 
He alone might go into the holy place ; for he wore no wool- 
en clothes, but linen. And alone he used to go into the Tem- 
ple, and there he was commonly found upon his knees, pray- 
ing for forgiveness for the people, so that his knees grew dry 
and thin [generally translated hard] like a camel's, from his 
constantly bending them in prayer, and entreating forgive- 
ness for the people. On account therefore of his exceeding 
righteousness he was called \ Just,' and ' Oblias,' which means 
in Greek ' the bulwark of the people,' and ' righteousness,' 
as the prophets declare of him. Some of the seven sects then 
that I have mentioned inquired of him, ' What is the door of 
Jesus ? ' And he said that this man was the Saviour, where- 
fore some believed that Jesus is the Christ. Now the fore- 
mentioned sects did not believe in the Resurrection, nor in 
the coming of one who shall recompense every man according 
to his works ; but all who became believers believed through 
James. When many therefore of the rulers believed, there 
was a disturbance among the Jews, and Scribes, and Phari- 
sees, saying, ' There is a risk that the whole people will ex- 
pect Jesus to be the Christ.' They came together therefore 
to 'James, and said, ' We pray thee, stop the people, for they 
have gone astray after Jesus as though he were the Christ. 
We pray thee to persuade all that come to the Passover con- 
cerning Jesus : for we all give heed to thee, for we and all the 
people testify to thee that thou art just, and acceptest not the 
person of man. Persuade the people therefore not to go 
astray about Jesus, for the whole people and all of us give 
heed to thee. Stand therefore on the gable of the Temple, 
that thou may est be visible, and that thy words may be heard 
by all the people ; for all the tribes and even the Gentiles are 
come together for the Passover.' Therefore the foremention- 
ed Scribes and Pharisees placed James upon the gable of the 
Temple, and cried out to him, and said, ' O Just one,. to whom 
we ought all to give heed, seeing that the people are going 
astray after Jesus who was crucified, tell us what is the door 



672 The Apostles and Evangelists. Chap. XX, 

of Jesus ? ' And he answered with a loud voice, i Why ask 
ye me about Jesus the Son of Man ? He sits in heaven on 
the right hand of great power, and will come on the clouds of 
heaven.' And many were convinced and gave glory on the 
testimony of James, crying ' Hosannah to the Son of David.' 
Whereupon the same Scribes and Pharisees said to each 
other, ' We have done ill in bringing forward such a witness 
to Jesus ; but let us go up, and throw him down, that they 
may be terrified, and not believe on him.' And they cried out, 
saying, ' Oh ! oh ! even the Just is gone astray.' And they 
fulfilled that which is written in Isaiah, ' Let us take away 
the just man, for he is displeasing to us ; therefore shall they 
eat of the fruit of their deeds.' They went up therefore, and 
threw down the Just one, and said one to another, ' Let us 
stone James the Just.' And they began to stone him, for he 
was not killed by the fall; but he turned round, and knelt 
down, and cried, ' I beseech thee, Lord God Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do.' And while they were 
stoning him, one of the priests, of the sons of Rechab, a son 
of the Rechabites, to whom Jeremiah the prophet bears testi- 
mony, cried out and said, l Stop ! What are you about ? 
The Just one is praying for you ! ' Then one of them, who 
was a fuller, took the club with which he pressed the clothes, 
and brought it down on the head of the Just one. And so 
he bore his witness. And they buried him on the spot by 
the Temple, and the column still remains by the Temple. This 
man was a. true witness to Jews and Greeks that Jesus is 
the Christ. And immediately Vespasian commenced the 
siege." 80 

For the difficulties which occur in this extract, reference 
may be made to Routh's Heliquim Sacrce* x - and to Dean 
Stanley's Apostolical Age. 82 It represents St. James to us in 
his life and in his death more vividly than any modern words 
could picture him. We see him, a married man perhaps, 83 
but in all other respects a rigid and ascetic follower after 
righteousness, keeping the Nazarite rule, like Anna the proph- 
etess, 84 serving the Lord in the Temple " with fastings and 
prayers night and day," regarded by the Jews themselves as 
one\vho had attained to the sanctity of the priesthood, though 

80 Euseb. ii. 23, and Routh, Rel. : James's martyrdom, but rather as 
Sacr. p. 208, Oxf. 1846. The last | connecting the crime with the retri- 
words, which are usually considered '■ bution that soon followed it. 
as at variance with Josephus, need j 81 Vol. i., p. 228. 
not, however, be taken as giving a 82 Page 319, Oxf. 1847. 
precise indication of the time of St. I 83 1 Cor. ix. 5. e4 Luke ii. 37. 



Chap. XX. 



St. James the Less. 



673 



not of the priestly family or tribe (unless indeed we argue 
from this that Clopas did belong to the tribe of Levi, and 
draw thence another argument for the identity of James the 
son of Clopas and James the Lord's brother), and as the very 
type of what a righteous or just man ought to be. If any 
man could have converted the Jews, as a nation, to Christian- 
ity, it would have been James. *• 

Josephus, as already more than once referred to, says that in 1 
the interval between the death of Festus and the coming of 
Albinus, Ananus the high-priest assembled the Sanhedrim, 
and "brought before it James the brother of him who is 
called Christ, and some others, and having charged them with 
breaking the laws, delivered them over to be stoned." The 
historian adds that the better part of the citizens disliked 
what was done, and complained of Ananus to Agrippa and 
Albinus, whereupon Albinus threatened to punish him for 
having assembled the Sanhedrim without his consent, and 
Agrippa deprived him of the high-priesthood. 65 The words 
"brother of him who is called Christ" are judged by many 
to be spurious. 

Epiphanius gives the same account that Hegesippus does, 
in somewhat different words, having evidently copied it for 
the most part from him. He adds a few particulars which 
are probably mere assertions or conclusions of his own. 86 He 
considers James to have been the son of Joseph by a former 
wife, and calculates that he must have been ninety-six years 
old at the time of his death ; and adds, on the authority, as 
he says, of Eusebius, Clement, and others, that he wore the 
TriraXov on his forehead, in which he probably confounds him 
with St. John. 87 Gregory of Tours reports that he Was bu- 
ried, not where he fell, but on the Mount of Olives, 88 in a 
tomb in which he had already buried Zacharias and Simeon. 

We have seen that there may be a reference to James in 



85 Joseph. Ant. xx. 9. 

66 Hceres. xxix. 4, and Ixxviii. 13. 

67 Polycr. apud Euseb. II. E. v. 24. 
88 The monument — part excavation, 

part edifice — which is now common- 
ly known as the "Tomb of St. 
James," is on the east side of the so- 
called Valley of Jehoshaphat, and 
therefore at a considerable distance 
from the spot on which the Apostle 
was killed, which the narrative of 
Hegesippus would seem to fix as 
somewhere under the south-cast cor- 



ner of the wall of the Haram, or per- 
haps further down the slope nearer 
the "Fountain of the Virgin." It 
can not at any rate be said to stand 
"by the Temple." The tradition 
about the monument in question is 
that St. James took refuge there aft- 
er the capture of Christ, and remain- 
ed, eating and drinking nothing, un- 
til our Lord appeared to him on the 
day of his resurrection. By the old 
travelers itis often called the "Chnrch 
of St. James," 



674 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 



Heb. xiii. % which would fix his death at some time previous 
to the writing of that Epistle. His apprehension by Ananus 
was probably about the year 62 or 63. There is nothing to 
fix the date of his martyrdom as narrated by Hegesippus, ex- 
cept that it must have been shortly before the commence- 
ment of the siege of Jerusalem. We may conjecture that 
he was between seventy and eighty years old. 89 

§ 10. Still following the connection of name with name, 
rather than the order of the lists of the Apostles, we come to 
the second person of the third group, Jude or Judas (that 
is Judah), " the brother of James," as he is called by our 
translators, 90 and as he distinctly calls himself, if he be the 
author of the Epistle of Jude. 01 It can not be doubted 
that the same Apostle is meant in the passage of St. John's 
Gospel where he is called simply Judas, but distinguished 
from Judas Iscariot. 92 The one question which he addresses 
to the Lord — " How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto 
us, and not unto the world ? " — a question which shows him 
as sharing the low temporal views of his Master's kingdom — 
and the mention of him as abiding with the other Apostles at 
Jerusalem, in prayer and supplication, after the Ascension, are 
the only special notices of him. 

But, on comparing the lists of the Apostles given by the three 
Evangelists, we find the place occupied by the name of Jude, 
in Luke, filled by that of Lebbwus in Matthew, and that of 
T/iaddmus in Mark. 93 All the discussion which the variety has 



89 It is almost unnecessary to say 
that the Jacobite churches of the 
East — consisting of the Armenians, 
the Copts, and other Monophysite or 
Eutychian bodies — do not derive their 
title from St. James, but from a later 
person of the same name, Jacob Bai- 
adseus, who died Bishop of Edessa in 
588. 

90 Luke vi. 17; Acts i. 13. 'lov- 
dac 'Ia/cw/Sow. The question, whether 
the ellipsis should be supplied by 
"brother" or "son" has been dis- 
cussed above. 

91 Jude 1 : adeXybg de 'IaK6/3ov. 
Concerning the Epistle, see the Ap- 
pendix. 

92 John xiv. 22. 'lovdac, ovx o 
'I#K,aptG)T7}g. 

93 Matt. x. 3 ; Mark iii. 18. Jude 
occupies the eleventh place in Luke's 
list, while Lebbseus and Thaddaeus 



stand tenth in those of Matthew and 
Mark ; there being a similar transposi- 
tion in that of Simon the Zealot, which 
is common to all three. In Matthew 
the A.V. has "Lebbasus, whose sur- 
name was Thaddaeus ;" but the words 
6 eTVLiikrjdeic. Qaddaioc are wanting from 
the best MSS. In both places there 
is considerable variety of reading ; 
some MSS. having both in St. Mat- 
thew and St. Mark AeflBaloc or 
Oaddaloc alone ; others introducing 
the name 'lovdac or Judas Zelotcs in 
St. Matthew, where the Vulgate reads 
Thaddceus alone, which is adopted by 
Lachmann in his Berlin edition of 
1832. This confusion is still further 
increased by the tradition preserved 
by Eusebius (//. E. i. 13) that the true 
name of Thomas (the twin) was Ju- 
das ('lovdac 6 ml Qtofiac), and that 
Thaddaeus was one of the " Seventh" 



Chap. XX. 



Jude, " £Ae brother of James. H 



675 



provoked does but lead back to the plain inference, general- 
ly accepted, that Jiide, Lebbazus and Thaddceus were three 
names for one and the same Apostle, who is therefore said by 
Jerome to have been trionymus. 

Nothing is certainly known of the later history of the Apos- 
tle. There may be some truth in the tradition which connects 
him with the foundation of the Church at Edessa; though 
here again there is much confusion, and doubt is thrown over 
the account by its connection- with the worthless fiction of 
" Abgarus king of Edessa." 94 Nicephorus 95 makes Jude die 
a natural death in that city after preaching in Palestine, Syr- 
ia, and Arabia. The Syrian tradition speaks of his abode 
at Edessa, but adds that he went thence to Assyria, and was 
martyred in Phoenicia on his return ; while that of the *west 
makes Persia the field of his labors and the scene of his mar- 
tyrdom. 96 

§11. The name of SiMoisr the Canaantte, or Zelotes, com- 
pletes (with the exception of Judas Iscariot) the third group of 
the Apostles, occupying the eleventh place in Matthew and 
Mark, and the tenth in Luke. 97 The two epithets attached to his 
name have the same signification, the latter being the Greek 
translation of the former, which is Chaldee. Both point him 
out as belonging to the faction of the Zealots, who were dis- 
tinguished for their fierce advocacy of the Mosaic ritual, and 
who played so conspicuous a part in the last defense of Jeru- 
salem. We have here a proof of the varied characters gath- 
ered together in the Apostolic band. 

Simon is not mentioned in the New Testament, except 
in the lists of the Apostles. He is reported, on very doubt- 
ful authority, to have preached in Egypt, Cyrene and Mau- 



identified by Jerome in Matt. x. with 
"Judas Jacob!;" as well as by the 
theories of modern scholars, who re- 
gard the " Levi " (Aevle 6 rov ' A?i<j)aiov) 
of Mark ii. 14, Luke v. 27, who is 
called "Lebes" (Ae/%) by Origen 
{contra Cels. 1. i. § 62), as the same 
with Lebbasus. No satisfactory ex- 
planation has been given of the names 
Lebbozus or Thadd&us. 

94 Euseb. H. E.i.lZ ; Jerome, Com- 
ment, in Matt. x. 

95 H. E. ii. 40. 

96 The resemblance of the state of 
things described in the Epistle of Jude 
to that in the Second Epistle of Peter 
confirms the view that both minis- 



tered and wrote to the Jews of the 
Asiatic Dispersion. 

97 Matt. x. 4, 2/ /uuv 6 navavalot, 
(Kavavirrjc in Text. Recept.), and so 
Mark iii. 18. The epithet represents 
the Chaldee word for zealot, and has 
nothing to do with the land of Canaan 
or the village of Cana. The Greek 
equivalent is used only by St. Luke. 
lifjLuw 6 na/.oi'fievoc C,t]}m>tt](;, Luke vi, 
15, Acts i. 13. The term Kavavi-wc 
seems to have survived the Greek 
form in the traditions of the Church. 
His identification with Simon the 
brother of Jesus has already been dis- 
cussed. See chap, ix., Notes ana T't< 
lustrations (A\ 



676 



Che Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 





retania, and to have been crucified in Judaea under Domi- 
tian. 

§ 12. Of Judas Iscakiot, 98 who stands last in this third 
group, all that is historical has been related in the Gospel His- 
tory ; and the solemn lessons taught by his character and fate 
lie beyond the province of this work. But his place was not 
left vacant in the foundation of the Apostolic Church. " Anoth- 
er took the office " of the fallen Apostle, when Matthias was 
chosen in the manner previously related." All that we know 
of Matthias for certain beyond this is that he had been a con- 
stant attendant upon the Lord Jesus during the whole course 
of his ministry ; for such was declared by St. Peter to be the nec- 
essary qualification of one who was to be a witness of the res- 
urrection. The name of Matthias occurs in no other place in 
the New Testament, and we may accept as probable the opin- 
ion which is shared by Eusebius :o ° and Epiphanus, 101 that he 
was one of the seventy disciples. It is said that he preached 
the Gospel and suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia. 102 An apoc- 
ryphal gospel was published under his name, 103 and Clement 
of Alexandria quotes from the Traditions of Matthias. 104 

§13. The middle group in the list of the Apostles consists 
of four names, each of which has some peculiar interest, 
Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas. 105 These four, 
though not sharing the same intimate converse with their Mas- 
ter as Peter and Andrew, James and John, are much more prom- 
inent in the Gospel narrative than the last four. Two of them 
were among our Saviour's first disciples ; Matthew was one of his 
early converts ; and Thomas, whose name stands in close con- 
nection with Matthew, probably became a disciple before any 
of the third group. — ' 7 

At the head of this second group stands Philip. He is 
mentioned as being of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and 
Peter, 106 and apparently was among the Galilean peasants of 
that district who flocked to hear the preaching of the Baptist. 
The manner in which St. John speaks of him, the repetition 
by him of the self-same words with which Andrew had 
brought to Peter the good news that the Christ had at last 

88 Of the various derivations of the 
epithet, the probable are, either from 
Kerioth in Judah — in which case he 
would be the only exception to the 
Galilean origin of the Apostles — or 
from Kartha in Galilee. 

99 Acts i. 15-26. Seechap.xiii.§3. 

100 H. E. lib. i. 1 2. 101 Hares, i. 20. 
102 Niccphor. ii. 60. 



103 Euseb. H. E. iii. 23. 

104 Strom, ii. 3 63, etc. 

105 This is the order of Mark (iii. 
18), and Luke (vi. 14, 15); while 
Matthew, evidently in the spirit of 
humility, not only places his own 
name after that of Thomas, but adds 
the description," the publican " (x 3). 

106 John i. 44. 






Chap. XX. Philip the Apostle. 677 

appeared, all indicate a previous friendship with the sons of 
Jonah and of Zebedee, and a consequent participation in their 
Messianic hopes. The close union of the two in John vi. and 
xii. suggests that he may have owed to Andrew the first ti- 
dings that the hope had been fulfilled. The statement that Je- 
sus found him 107 implies a previous seeking. To him first, in 
the whole circle of the disciples, were spoken the words so 
full of meaning, " Follow me." As soon as he has learned to 
know his Master, he is eager to communicate his discovery 
to another who had also shared the same expectations. He 
speaks to Nathanael, probably on his arrival in Cana, 108 as 
though they had not seldom communed together of the intima- 
tions of a better time, of a divine kingdom, which they found 
in their sacred books. We may w T ell believe that he, like his 
friend, was an " Israelite indeed in whom there was no guile." 
In the lists of the twelve Apostles in the synoptic Gospels, his 
name is as uniformly at the head of the second group of four 
as the name of Peter is at that of the first ; 109 and the facts 
recorded by St. John give the reason for this priority. In 
those lists again Ave find his name uniformly coupled with 
that of Bartholomew, and this has led to the hypothesis that 
the latter is identical with the Nathanael of John i. 45 3 the 
one being the personal name, the other, like Bar-jonah or Barti- 
maeus, a patronymic. 

Philip apparently was among the first company of disciples 
who were with the Lord at the commencement of his ministry, 
at the marriage of Cana, and on his first appearance as a 
prophet in Jerusalem. 110 When John was cast into prison, 
and the work of declaring the glad tidings of the kingdom re- 
quired a new company of preachers, we may believe that he, 
like his companions and friends, received a new call to a more 
constant discipleship. 111 When the Twelve were specially set 
apart for their office, he was numbered among them. The 
first three Gospels tell us nothing more of him individually. 
St. John, with his characteristic fullness of personal reminis- 
cences, records a few significant utterances. When the Gali- 
lean crowds had halted on their way to Jerusalem to hear the 
preaching of Jesus, 112 and were faint with hunger, it was to 
Philip that the question was put, " Whence shall we buy 
bread that these may eat?" "And this he said," St. John 
adds, " to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do." 
The answer, " Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not suffi- 

107 John i. 43.— 108 Comp. John xxi. 2.— 109 Matt. x. 3 ; Mark iii. 18; Luke 
vi. H.— 110 John ii.~ ul Matt. iv. 18-22.— " 2 John vi. 5-9. 



678 The Apostles and Evangelists. Chap. XX 

cient for them that every one may take a little," shows how 
little he was prepared for the work of divine power that fol- 
lowed. It is noticeable that here, as in John i., he appears in 
close connection with Andrew. 

Another incident is brought before us in John xii. 20-22 o 
Among the pilgrims who had come to keep the Passover at 
Jerusalem, were some Gentile proselytes (Hellenes) who had 
heard of Jesus, and desired to see him. The Greek name of 
Philip may have attracted them. The zealous love which he had 
shown in the case of ISTathanael may have made him prompt 
to offer himself as their guide. But it is characteristic of 
him that he does not take them at once to the presence of his 
Master. " Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and again An- 
drew and Philip tell Jesus." The friend and fellow-towns- 
man to whom probably he owed his own introduction to Jesus 
of Nazareth is to introduce these strangers also. 

There is a connection not difficult to be traced between this 
fact and that which follows on the last recurrence of Philip's 
name in the history of the Gospels. The desire to see Jesus 
gave occasion to the utterance of words in which the Lord 
spoke more distinctly than ever of the presence of his Father 
with him, and to the voice from heaven which manifested 
the Father's will. 113 The words appear to have sunk into the 
heart of at least one of the disciples, and he brooded over 
them. The strong cravings of a passionate but unenlightened 
faith led him to feel that one thing was yet wanting. They 
heard their Lord speak of his Father and of their Father. He 
was going to his Father's house. They were to follow him 
there. But why should they not have even now a vision of 
the Divine glory ? It was part of the child-like simplicity of 
Philip's nature that no reserve should hinder the expression 
of the craving, " Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 114 
And the answer to that desire belonged also specially to him. 
He had all along been eager to lead others to see Jesus. He 
had been with him, looking on him from the very commence- 
ment of his ministry, and yet he had not known him. He had 
thought of the glory of the Father as consisting in some- 
thing else than the Truth, Righteousness, Love that he had 
witnessed in the Son. " Have I been so long time with you, and 
yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father. How sayest thou, Show us the Father ?" 
No other fact connected with the name of Philip is recorded 
in the Gospels. The close relation in which we have seen him 

113 John xii. 28. m John xiv. 8. 



Chap. XX. Bartholomew and Matthew. 679 

standing to the sons of Zebedee and Xathanael might lead us 
to think of him as one of the two unnamed disciples in the list 
of fishermen of the Sea of Tiberias who meet us in John xxi. 
He is among the company of disciples at Jerusalem after the 
Ascension, 115 and on the day of Pentecost. 

After this all is uncertain and apocryphal. He is mention- 
ed bv Clement of Alexandria as having had a wife and chil- 
dren', and as having sanctioned the marriage of his daughters 
instead of binding them to vows of chastity, 116 and is included 
in the list of those who had borne witness of Christ in their 
lives, but had not died what was commonly looked on as a 
martyr's death. 117 Polycrates, 118 bishop of Ephesus, speaks 
of him as having fallen asleep in the Phrygian Hierapolis, as 
having had two daughters who had grown old unmarried; 
and a third, with special gifts of inspiration, who had died at 
Ephesus. There seems, however, in this mention of the 
daughters of Philip, to be some confusion between the 
Apostle and the Evangelist. The apocryphal "Acta Philip- 
pi" are utterly wild and fantastic, and if there is any grain 
of truth in them, it is probably the bare fact that the Apostle 
or the Evangelist labored in Phrygia, and died at Hierapolis. 

§ 14. Bartholomew is a patronymic, the son of Talma i. 113 
His own name nowhere appears in the three first Gospels. 
It has been not improbably conjectured that he is identical 
with Xathanael. 120 Xathanael there appears to have been 
first brought to Jesus by Philip ; and in the three first cata- 
logues of the Apostles (cited above) Bartholomew and Philip 
appear together. It is difficult also to imagine, from the 
place assigned to Xathanael in John xxi. 2, that he can have 
been other than an Apostle. If this may be assumed, he was 
born at Cana of Galilee : and he is said to have preached the 
Gospel in India, 121 meaning thereby, probably, Arabia Felix, 
which was sometimes called India by the ancients. 122 Some 
allot Armenia to him as his mission-field, and report him to 
have been there flayed alive and then crucified with his head 
downward. 1 '' 43 

§ 15. Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist, is the same as 
Levi, 124 the son of a certain Alphaeus. 125 His call to be an 

115 Acts i. 13. j 120 John i. 45 if. 

116 Strom, iii. 52 ; Euseb. H. E. m Euseb. //. E. v. 10 ; Jerome, 
iii. 30. m Strovi. iv. 73. Vz'r. Jllust. 36. 

m Euseb. H. E. iii. 31. 122 Mosheim. Be Rebus. Christ, ante 

113 Compare the LXX.9o/,//at Go/- Constant. M. Commentaril, p. 206. 

audi Josh. xv. 14, 2 K. xiii. 37, and 123 Assemann. Bib I. Or. iii. 2, 20. 

Qo/.ouaiog, Joseph. Ant. xx. 1, § 1 m Luke v. 27-29 l25 Mark ii. 14. 



680 



1 'he Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX, 



Apostle is related by all three Evangelists in the same words } 
except that Matthew gives the former, and Mark and Luke 
the latter name. 126 If there were two publicans, both called 
solemnly in the same form at the same place, Capernaum, 
then one of them became an Apostle, and the other was heard 
of no more , xor LevHs not mentioned again after the feast 
which he made in our Lord's honor. 127 This is most unlike- 
ly. Euthymius and many other commentators of note 
identify Alphaeus the father of Matthew with Alphseus the 
father of James the Less. Against this is to be set the fact 
that in the lists of Apostles, Matthew and James the Less are 
never mentioned together, like other pairs of brothers in the 
Apostolic body. It may be, as in other cases, that the name 
Levi was replaced by the name Matthew at the time of the 
call. The names Matthasus and Matthias are probably both 
contractions of Mattathias, 128 a common Jewish name after 
the exile; but the true derivation is not certain. He be- 
longed to the sordid class of portitores, the collectors under 
the pitblicani, who, as a rule, were worthy of the hatred with 
which the Jews regarded them. 129 The readiness, however, 
with which Matthew obeyed the call of Jesus seems to show 
that his heart was still open to religious impressions. His 
conversion was attended by a great awakening of the outcast 
classes of the Jews. 130 Matthew, in his Gospel, does not omit 
the title of infamy which had belonged to him, but neither 
of the other Evangelists speaks of " Matthew the publican" 
Of the exact share which fell to him in preaching the Gospel 
nothing whatever is told us in the New Testament, and other 
sources of information we can not trust. 

Eusebius 131 mentions that after our Lord's ascension Mat- 
thew preached in Judaea (some add for fifteen years), and 
then Avent to foreign nations. To the lot of Matthew it fell 
to visit Ethiopia, says Socrates Scholasticus. 132 Ambrose 
says that God opened to him the country of the Persians ; 133 
Isidore, the Macedonians ; 134 and others, the Parthians, the 
Medes, the Persians of the Euphrates : but nothing whatever 
is really known. Lleracleon, the disciple of Valentinus (cited 
by Clemens Alexandrinus) describes him as dying a natural 
death, which Clement, Origen, and Tertullian seem to accept : 
the tradition that he died a martyr came in afterward. 



126 Matt. ix. 9 ; Mark ii. 14 ; Luke 
v. 27. m Luke v. 29. 

128 i. e., " Gift of Jehovah "=9 £ o- 
dupog QeodoTog. 



130 Matt. ix. 9, 10.— 13: H. E. Hi. 24. 

132 H. E. i. 19 ; Ruff. H. E. x. 9. 

133 In Ps. 45. 
Isidore Hisp. de Sanet. 77 



129 See chap, vii., Notes and Illustrations (A\ 



Chap. XX. Thomas, surnamed u Didymus" 681 

§ 16. All that we know of Thomas 135 is derived from the 
Gospel of St. John ; and this amounts to three traits, which, 
however, so exactly agree together, that, slight as they are, 
they place his character before us with a precision which be- 
longs to no other of the twelve Apostles, except Peter, John, 
and Judas Iscariot. This character is that of a man slow to 
believe, seeing all the difficulties of a case, subject to de- 
spondency, viewing things on the darker side, and yet full of 
ardent love for his Master. 

The first trait is his speech when our Lord determined to 
face the dangers that awaited him in Judaea on his journey to 
Bethany. Thomas said to his fellow-disciples, " Let us also 
go, that we may die with him." 136 He entertained no hope of 
his escape — he looked on the journey as leading to total 
ruin ; but he determined to share the peril. " Though he 
slay me, yet will I trust in him." 

The second was his speech during the Last Supper : 
" Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou 
goest, and how can we know the way?" 137 It was the pro- 
saic, incredulous doubt as to moving a step in the unseen fu- 
ture, and yet an eager inquiry to know how this step was to 
be taken. 

The third was after the Resurrection. He was absent — 
possibly by accident, perhaps characteristically — from the 
first assembly when Jesus appeared. The others told him 
what they had seen. He broke forth into an exclamation, 
the terms of which convey to us at once the vehemence of 
his doubt, and at the same time the vivid picture that his 
mind retained of his Master's form as he had last seen him 
lifeless on the cross. " Except I see on his hands the print 
of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and 
thrust my hand into his side, I will not, I can not believe." 13B 

On the eighth day he was with them at their gathering, 
perhaps in expectation of a recurrence of the visit of the pre- 
vious week ; and Jesus stood among them. He uttered the 
same salutation, " Peace be unto you ; " and then turning to 

136 According to Eusebius (H. E. I twin-sister, Lydia {Patres Apost. p. 
i. 13) his real name was Judas, j 272), or that he was a twin-brother 
This may have been a mere confusion of our Lord (Thilo, Acta Thoma?, p. 
with Thaddaeus, who is mentioned in i 94) ; which last, again, would con- 
the extract. But it may also be that firm his identification with Judas 



Thomas was a surname. The word 
Thoma means "a twin;" and so it 
is translated in John xi. 16, xxi. 2, 
6 didv/Lioc. Out of this name has 



(comp. Matt. xiii. 55). He is said 
to have been born at Antioch {Patres 
Apost. pp. 272, 512). 
136 John xi. 16. 



grown the tradition that he had a m John xiv. 5. 138 John xx. 25- 
D D 2 



682 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX 









Thomas, as if this had been the special object of his appear- 
ance, uttered the words which convey as strongly the sense 
of condemnation and tender reproof, as those of Thomas had 
shown the sense of hesitation and doubt. " Bring thy finger 
hither [Jjh — as if himself pointing to his wounds] and see 
my hands ; and bring thy hand and thrust it in my side ; and 
do not become (pr) yivov) unbelieving (cnriorog), but believing 
[ttmttoc;)." • 

The effect 139 on Thomas is immediate. The conviction 
produced by the removal of his doubt became deeper and 
stronger than that of any of the other Apostles. The words 
in which he expressed his belief contain a far higher asser- 
tion of his Master's divine nature than can be traced in any 
other expression used by Apostolic lips, " My Lord and my 
God." And the word " my " gives it a personal application 
to himself. The answer of our Lord sums up the- moral of 
the whole narrative : " Because thou hast seen me, thou hast 
believed : blessed are they that have not seen me, and yet 
have believed." 14 ° By this incident, therefore, Thomas, " the 
Doubting Apostle," is raised at once to the Theologian in the 
original sense of the word. It is this feature of his character 
which has been caught in later ages, when for the first time 
its peculiar lesson became apparent. In the famous statue of 
him by Thorwaldsen in the church at Copenhagen, he stands, 
the thoughtful, meditative sceptic, with the rule in his hand 
for the due measuring of evidence and argument. In the 
New Testament we hear of Thomas only twice again, once 
on the Sea of Galilee with the seven disciples, where he is 
ranked next after Peter, 141 and again in the assemblage of the 
Apostles after the Ascension. 142 

The earlier traditions, as believed in the fourth century, 145 
represent him as preaching in Parthia or Persia, and as final- 
ly buried at Edessa. 144 Chrysostom mentions his grave at 
Edessa, as being one of the four genuine tombs of Apostles ; 
the other three being those of Peter, Paul and John. 145 With 
his burial at Edessa agrees the story of his sending Thad- 
daeus to Abgarus with our Lord's letter. 146 

The later traditions carry him further East, and ascribe to 
him the foundation of the Christian Church in Malabar, 
which still goes by the name of " the Christians of St. Thorn- 

139 It is useless to speculate wheth- 
er he obeyed our Lord's invitation to 
examine the wounds. The impres- 
sion is that he did not. 

140 John xx. 29. 

141 John xxi. 2. 



142 Acts i. 13. 

143 Bus. 77. E. i. 13, iii. 1; Soc< 
rat. H. E. i. 1& 

144 Socr. H. E. iv. 18. 

145 Horn, in Heb. 26. 
140 Euseb. //. E. i. 13 



Chap. XX. The Four Evangelists. 683 

as ;" and his tomb is shown in the neighborhood. This, how- 
ever, is now usually regarded as arising from a confusion 
with a later Thomas, a missionary from the Nestorians. His 
martyrdom (whether in Persia or India) is said to have been 
effected by a lance. 147 --4_J S L— ■ — 

§ 17. To these twelve Apostles two more were added spe- 
cially for the mission to the Gentiles, for we have seen that 
Bauxabas, as well as Paul, is expressly designated by that 
title. The word Barnabas is an appellative — signifying the 
" son of prophecy " or " exhortation," rather than of " conso- 
lation " — given by the Apostles to Joseph, a Levite of the 
island of Cyprus. 148 We have already seen his Christian de- 
votedness, as contrasted with the self-seeking of Ananias ; 
how he justified his title by his ministry at Antioch; how he 
introduced Paul to the Apostles after his conversion ; how he 
sought him out at Tarsus, labored with him at Antioch, went 
up with him twice to Jerusalem, and shared his first mission- 
ary journey; and how, on the proposal of the second, the fel- 
low-laborers were severed by their dispute about John Mark. 

If we may judge from the hint furnished by the fact that 
Paul was commended by the brethren to the grace of God, it 
would seem that Barnabas was in the wrong. He took Mark, 
and sailed to Cyprus, his native island. And here the Script- 
ure notices of him cease : those found in Gal. ii. 1, 9, 13, be- 
long to an earlier period. From 1 Cor. ix. 6 we infer that 
Barnabas was a married man ; and from Gal, (/. <?.), and the 
circumstances of the dispute with Paul, his character seems 
not to have possessed that thoroughness of purpose and de- 
termination which was found in the great Apostle. As to 
his further labors and death, traditions differ. Some say 
that he went to Milan, and became first bishop of the Church 
there : the Clementine Homilies make him to have been a 
disciple of our Lord himself, and to have preached in Rome 
and Alexandria, and converted Clement of Rome : the Clem- 
entine Recognitions say that he preached in Rome even dur- 
ing the life-time of our Lord. There is extant an apocryphal 
work, probably of the fifth century, Acta et Passio Bamabaz 
in Cypro, which relates his second missionary journey to 
Cyprus, and his death by martyrdom there ; and a still later 
encomium of Barnabas, by a Cyprian monk Alexander, which 
makes him to have been brought up with St. Paul under 

147 An apocryphal "Gospel ofjendorfs Evannelia Apocrypha; the 
Thomas" (chiefly relating to the In- Apocryphal " Acts of Thomas " by 
fancy of Christ) is published in Tisch- | Thilo (Codex Apocryphus). 
148 Acts iv. 36. 



684 



The Apostles and Evangelists. Chap. XX 






¥>. 



Gamaliel, and gives an account of the pretended finding of 
his body in the time of the Emperor Zeno (474-490). We 
nave an Epistle in twenty-one chapters called by the name of 
Barnabas. Of this, the first four chapters and a half are extant 
only in a barbarous Latin version; the rest in the original 
Greek. Its authenticity has been defended by some great 
names ; but it is very generally given up now, and the Epistle 
is, believed to have been written early in the second century. 

§ 18. In their office of laying the foundations of the Church, 
some of the Apostles used the pen as well as the tongue; and 
two of them, Matthew and John, undertook the special 
function of placing on permanent record those facts concern- 
ing the life and death and resurrection of Christ, of which 
they were his own chosen witnesses. This would seem to be 
a distinctive part of the Apostolic office ; nor is this view at 
variance with the fact that it was undertaken also by two 
others, who were not Apostles. For it may now be received 
as an established fact, that the Gospels of Mark and Luke 
were written under the supervision of Peter and Paul. These 
two writers, therefore, may well claim a place next to the 
Apostles. But, in speaking of them as Evangelists, we must 
distinguish this use of the word from its proper New Testa- 
ment signification, as describing a class of teachers next in 
rank to Apostles and Prophets, the Evangelizers of the 
world. 149 It was at a later age that the writer of a Gospel 
(evayyiXtop), was called an Evangelist (evayyeXiarriQ) not only a 
matter of etymology, but the natural process of thought which 
is thus stated by Eusebius : — " Men do the work of Evangel- 
ists, leaving their homes to proclaim Christ, and deliver the 
written Gospels to those who were ignorant of the faith." 150 
If the Gospel was a written book, and the office of the Evan- 
gelists was to read or distribute it, then the writers of such 
books were ra;' Qoyyv The Evangelists. It is thus, accord- 
ingly, that Eusebius speaks of them; and this meaning soon 
overshadowed the old one. Of the Gospels we shall speak 
presently ; 151 and frequent occasions have occurred to notice 
points in that personal history of Mark and Luke, which we 
have now to collect into one view. 

(i.) Mark the Evangelist is probably the same as " John 
whose surname was Mark." 162 John was the Jewish name, 
and Mark, a name of frequent use among the Romans, was 
adopted afterward, and gradually superseded the other. The 
places in the New Testament enable us to trace the process 



149 Eph. iv. \\. 

160 Euseb. If. E. iii. 37. 



151 See Appendix, p. 700, seq* 

152 Acts xii. 12, 25 



Chap. XX. 



John, surnamed "Mark. 11 685 



The John Mark of Acts xii. 12, 25^ and the John of Acts xiii. 
5, 13, becomes Mark only in Acts xv. 39, Col. iv. 10, 2 Tim. 
iv. 11, Philem. 24. The change of John to Mark is analogous 
to that of Saul to Paul ; and we can not doubt that the dis- 
use of the Jewish name in favor of the other is intentional, 
and has reference to the putting away of his former life, and 
his entrance upon a new ministry. No inconsistency arises 
from the accounts of his ministering to two Apostles. Of his. 
desertion of Paul we have already spoken. 153 

John Mark was the son of a certain Mary, who dwelt at 
Jerusalem, and he was therefore probably born in that city. 154 
He was the cousin of Barnabas. 155 It was to Mary's house, 
as to a familiar haunt, that Peter came after his deliverance 
from prison, 156 and there found " many gathered together 
praying ;" and John Mark was probably converted by Peter 
from meeting him in his mother's house, for he speaks of 
" Marcus my son." 157 This natural link of connection be- 
tween the two passages is broken by the supposition of two 
Marks, which is on ail accounts improbable. The theory 
that he was one of the seventy disciples is without any war- 
rant. Another theory, that an event of the night of our 
Lord's betrayal, related by Mark alone, is one that befell him- 
self, must not be so promptly dismissed. " There followed 
him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his 
naked body ; and the young men laid hold on him ; and he 
left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked." 168 The de- 
tail of facts is remarkably minute, the name only is wanting. 
The most probable view is that St. Mark suppressed his own 
name, while telling a story which he had the best means of 
knowing. Awakened out of sleep, or just preparing for it, in 
some house in the valley of Kedron, he comes out to see the 
seizure of the betrayed Teacher, known to him and in some, 
degree beloved already. He is so deeply interested in his 
fate that he follows him even in his thin linen robe. His de- 
meanor is such that some of the crowd are about to arresJ 
him ; then, " fear overcoming shame " (Bengal), he leaves his 
garment in their hands and flees. We can only say that if 
the name of Mark is supplied, the narrative receives its most 
probable explanation. John 159 introduces himself in this un- 
obtrusive way, and perhaps Luke likewise. 160 Mary the moth* 



163 



Acts xiii. 13. Chap. xv. § 10. 



154 Acts xii. 12 

155 Col. iv. 10, ave-^Log. properly 
"first-cousin" (not "sister's son," as ! 158 Mark xiv. 51, 52. 

159 John i, 40, xix. 26. 160 Luke xxiv. 18 



in the A.V.), and thence extended ta 



any collateral blood relations. 

156 Acts xii. 12. 157 1" Pet. v. 13. 



686 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 





er of Mark seems to have been a person of some means and 
influence, and her house a rallying - point for Christians in 
those dangerous days. Her son, already an inquirer, would 
soon become more. Anxious to work for Christ, he went 
with Paul and Barnabas as their " minister " on their return 
from Jerusalem, and on their first journey ; but at Perga, as 
we have seen above, he turned back. 161 On the second jour- 
ney Paul would not accept him again as a companion, but 
Barnabas his kinsman was more indulgent ; and thus he be- 
came the cause of the memorable " sharp contention " be- 
tween them. 162 Whatever was the cause of Mark's vacilla- 
tion, it did not separate him forever from Paul, for we find 
him by the side of that Apostle in his first imprisonment at 
Rome. 163 In the former place a journey of Mark to Asia is 
contemplated. Somewhat later he is with Peter at Baby- 
lon. 104 Some consider Babylon to be a name here given to 
Rome in a mystical sense ; surely without reason, since the 
date of a letter is not the place to look for a figure of speech. 
Of the causes of this visit to Babylon there is no evidence. 
It may be conjectured that he made the journey to Asia 
Minor, and thence went on to join Peter at Babylon. 105 Re- 
turning to proconsular Asia, he seems to have been with 
Timothy at Ephesus when Paul wrote to him during his sec- 
ond imprisonment, and Paul was anxious for his company and 
ministry at Rome. 100 

When we pass beyond Scripture, we find the facts doubt- 
ful and even inconsistent. If Papias is to be trusted, 167 Mark 
never was a disciple of our Lord ; which he probably infers 
from 1 Pet. v. 13. Epiphanius, on the other hand, willing to 
do honor to the Evangelist, adopts the tradition that he was 
one of the seventy-two disciples, who turned back from our 
Lord at the hard saying in John vi. 108 The same had been 
said of St. Luke. Nothing can be decided on this point. 
The relation of Mark to Peter is of great importance for our 
view of his Gospel. Ancient writers with one consent make 
the Evangelist the interpreter (epfirjvevTrjg) of the Apostle Pe- 
ter. 109 Some explain this word to mean that the office of 
Mark was to translate into the Greek tongue the Aramaic 



361 Acts xii. 25, xiii. 13. 

162 Acts xv. 36-40. 

163 Col. iv. 10 ; Philem. 24. 

164 1 Pet. v. 13. 

165 Comp. chap. xix. § 1. 
186 2 Tim. iv. 11. 



168 Contra. Hair, li. 6, p. 457, Din- 
dorf's recent edition. 

169 Papias in Euseb. H. E. iii. 39; 
Irenaeus, Hcer. iii. 1, iii. 10, 6; Ter- 
tullian, c. Marc. iv. 5 ; Hieronyrnus, 
ad Hedib. ix., etc. 



Quoted in Eusebius, H. E. iii. 39. 



Chap. XX. St. Luke. 687 

discourses of the Apostle ; while others adopt the more prob- 
able view, that Mark wrote a Gospel which conformed more 
exactly than the others to Peter's preaching, and thus " in- 
terpreted " it to the Church at large. The report that Mark 
was the companion of Peter at Home is no doubt of great 
antiquity. Clement of Alexandria is quoted by Eusebius as 
giving it for " a tradition which he had received of the elders 
from the first." 1T0 But the force of this is invalidated by the 
suspicion that it rests on a misunderstanding of 1 Pet. v. 13, 
Babylon being wrongly taken for a typical name of Rome. 171 
Another tradition is, that Mark, sent on a mission to Egypt 
by Peter, 172 founded the Church of Alexandria, 173 and having 
preached in various places m then returned to Alexandria, of 
which Church he was bishop, and there suffered a martyr's 
death. 175 But none of these later details rest on sound authority. 

(ii.) The name Luke (Aovk&s) is an abbreviated form of 
Zucanics or of Liicilius. It is not to be confounded with 
Lucius, 176 which belongs to a different person. The name of 
Luke occurs three times in the New Testament, 177 and doubt- 
less in all three the third Evangelist is the person spoken of. 
To the Colossians he is described as " the beloved physician," 
probably because he had been known to them in that faculty. 
Timothy needs no additional mark for identification ; to him 
the words are, " only Luke is with me." To Philemon, Luke 
sends his salutation in common with other " fellow-laborers " 
of St. Paul. As there is every reason to believe that the 
Luke of these passages is the author of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, as well as of the Gospel which bears his name, it is nat- 
ural to seek in the former book for some traces of that con- 
nection with St. Paul which these passages assume to exist ; 
and although the name of St. Luke does not occur in the 
Acts, we have seen ample reason to believe that under the 
pronoun " we," several references to the Evangelist are to be 
added to the three places just quoted. 

Combining the traditional element with the Scriptural, the 
uncertain with the certain, we are able to trace the following 
dim outline of the Evangelist's life. He was born at Antioch 
in Syria ; 178 in what condition of life is uncertain. That he 
was taught the science of medicine does not prove that he 



170 Eusebius, H. E.\\. 14; Clem. 
Alex. Hyp. 6. 

171 Euseb. H. E. ii. 15 ; Hieron. 
De Vir. III. 8. 

172 Epiphanius, H(tr. Ii. 6, p. 457, 
Dindorf; Euseb. H. E. ii. 16. 

173 Hieron. De Vir. Ill 8. 



174 Niceph. H. E. ii. 43. 

175 Niceph. ibid., and Hieron. De 
Vir. III. 8. 

1:6 Acts xiii. 1 ; Kom. xvi. 21. 

177 Col. iv. 14; 2 Tim. iv. 11; 
Philem. 24. 

178 Euseb. Hist. iii. 4. 



688 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 



was of higher birth than the rest of the disciples ; medicine in 
its earlier and ruder state was sometimes practiced even by a 
slave. The well-known tradition that Luke was also a paint- 
er, and of no mean skill, rests on the authority of Niceph- 
orus, 179 and of other late writers ; but none of them are of his- 
torical authority, and the Acts and Epistles are wholly silent 
upon a point so likely to be mentioned. He was not born a 
Jew, for he is not reckoned among them " of the circumcis- 
ion " by St. Paul. 180 If this be not thought conclusive, noth- 
ing can be argued from the Greek idioms in his style, for he 
might be a Hellenist Jew ; nor from the Gentile tendency of 
bis Gospel, for this it would share with the inspired writings 
of St. Paul, a Pharisee brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. 
The date of his conversion is uncertain. He was not indeed 
" an eye-witness and minister of the word from the begin- 
ning," 181 or he would have rested his claim as an Evangelist 
upon that ground. Still he may have been converted by the 
Lord himself, some time before His departure; and the state- 
ment of Epiphanius, 182 and others, that he was one of the sev- 
enty disciples, has nothing very improbable in it ; while that 
which Theophylact adopts (on Luke xxiv.), that he was one of 
the two who journeyed to Emmaus with the risen Redeemer, 
has found modern defenders. Tertullian assumes that the 
conversion of Luke is to be ascribed to Paul ; 183 and the bal- 
ance of probability is on this side. 

The first ray of historical light falls on the Evangelist when 
he joins St. Paul at Troas, and shares his journey into Mace- 
donia. The sudden transition to the first person plural in 
Acts xvi. 9, is most naturally explained, after all the objections 
that have been urged, by supposing that Luke, the writer of 
the Acts, formed one of St. Paul's company from this point. 
His conversion had taken place before, since he silently as- 
sumes his place among the great Apostle's followers without 
any hint that this was his first admission to the knowledge and 
ministry of Christ. He may have found his way to Troas to 
preach the Gospel, sent possibly by St. Paul himself. As far 
as Philippi, the Evangelist journeyed with the Apostle. The 
resumption of the third person on Paul's departure from that 
place 184 would show that Luke was now left behind. During 
the rest of St. Paul's second missionary journey we hear of 



14. 



179 H. E. ii. 43. 

180 Comp. Col. iv. 11 with ver. 

181 Luke i. 2. 

182 Cont. Hcer. Ii. 11. 

183 Lucas non apostolus, sed apos- 



tolicus ; non magister, sed discipulus, 
utique magistro minor, certe tanto 
posterior quanto posterioris Apostoli 
sectator, Pauli sine dubio " (Adv. 
Marcion. iv. 2). 



Chap. XX 



The Seven "Deacons." 



Luke no more. But on the third journey the same indication 
reminds us that Luke is again of the company, 185 having 
joined it apparently at Philippi, where he had been left. 
With the Apostle he passed through Miletus, Tyre and Caes- 
area to Jerusalem. 186 Between the two visits of Paul to Phi- 
lippi seven years had elapsed (a.d. 51 to a.d. 58), which the 
Evangelist may have spent in Philippi and its neighborhood, 
preaching the Gospel. 

There remains one passage which, if it refers to St. Luke, 
must belong to this period. " We have sent with him " (i. e. 9 
Titus) " the brother whose praise is in the Gospel throughout 
all the churches." 187 The subscription of the Epistle sets out 
that it was " ivritten from Philippi, a city of Macedonia, by 
Titus and Lucas? and it is an old opinion that Luke was the 
companion of Titus, although he is not named in the body of 
the Epistle. If this be so, we are to suppose that during the 
"three months" of Paul's sojourn at Philippi 188 Luke was 
sent from that place to Corinth on this errand ; and the words 
" Avhose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the churches," en- 
able us to form an estimate of his activity during the interval 
in which he has not been otherwise mentioned. It is needless 
to add that the praise lay in the activity with which he 
preached the Gospel ; and not, as Jerome understands the pas- 
sage, in his being the author of a written Gospel. 189 The nar- 
rative warrants the inference, that Luke was with Paul during 
his two years' imprisonment at Caesarea ; and this is the most 
probable time for the composition of his Gospel. 

He again appears in the company of Paul in the memora- 
ble voyage to Rome. 190 He remained at his side during his 
imprisonment; 191 and, assuming that the second Epistle to 
Timothy was written during the second imprisonment, the 
testimony of that Epistle (iv. 11) shows that he continued 
faithful to the Apostle to the end of his afflictions. 

After the death of St. Paul, the acts of his faithful compan- 
ion are hopelessly obscure to us. 192 It is as perhaps the Evan- 
gelist wished it to be : we only know him while he stands by the 
side of his beloved Paul : when the master departs, the histo- 
ry of the follower becomes confusion and fable. As to the 
age and death of the Evangelist, there is the utmost uncertain- 
ty. It seems probable that he died in advanced life; but 



184 Acts xvii. 1. 185 Acts xx. 5. 

186 Acts xx. 5, xxi. 18. 

187 2 Cor. viii. 18. 1S8 Acts xx. 3. 
189 "Lucas .... scripsit Evangel- 

inm de quo idem Paulus 'Misimus, 
inquit, cum illo fratrem, cujus laus 



est inEvangelio per omnes ecclesias ' " 
(De Viris III. c. 7). 

190 Acts xxvii. 1. See chap, xviii. 
& Q 

191 Col. iv. U ; Philem. 24. 

192 In a well-known passage of 



690 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 



whether he suffered martyrdom or died a natural death ; 
whether Bithynia or Achaia, or some other country, witnessed 
his end, it is impossible to determine amid contradictory 
voices. That he died a martyr, between a.d. *75 and a.d. 100, 
would seem to have the balance of suffrages in its favor. It is 
enough for us, so far as regards the Gospel of St. Luke, to know 
that the writer was the tried and constant friend of the Apos- 
tle Paul, who shared his labors, and was not driven from his 
side by danger. 

§ 19. Next in order to the Apostles, in the sacred history, 
stand those Seven Me?i of Good Report who are commonly 
called Deacons ; and this class derives special celebrity from 
the martyrdom of Stephen, and the evangelizing labors of 
Philip. After what has been said of these two in the Apos- 
tolic history, it only remains to add some further notices of the 
latter. He was, like the rest of his colleagues, in all probabil- 
ity a Hellenist. His place in the confidence of the Church 
is shown by his standing in the list of the Seven next to 
Stephen ; and we should expect the man who was thus worthy 
of being Stephen's companion and fellow-worker to go on with 
the work which he left unfinished, and to break through the 
barriers of national Judaism. Accordingly, foremost among 
those whom the persecution that ensued on the death of the first 
Deacon drove from Jerusalem, we find the second carrying the 
Gospel to the outcasts of Samaria and the proselyte of Ethio- 
pia : and thus Philip became the precursor of St. Paul in his 
work, as Stephen had been in his teaching. It falls to his lot, 
rather than to that of an Apostle, to take the first step in the 
victory over Jewish prejudice, and in the expansion of the 
Church according to its Lord's command. For this we may 
perhaps find a deeper reason than the mere fact that the 
Apostles had not yet left Jerusalem. As the Samaritans had 
already shown themselves, on our Lord's first visit, more alive 
to spiritual views of the Messiah than the Jews, so would 
a Hellenist probably be better prepared than a Jew to satis- 
fy their hopes. From Azotus, where he re-appeared after his 
miraculous separation from the Ethiopian eunuch, he made his 
way to Csesarea, preaching in all the cities he passed through ; 193 
and we may be permitted to conjecture that his ministry at 



Epiphanius (Hccr. li. 11, vol. ii. 464, in 
Dindorf's edition) we find that "re- 
ceiving the commission to preach the 
Gospel, [Luke] preaches first in Dal- 
matia and Gallia, in Italy and Mace- 
donia, but first in Gallia, as Paul him- 
self says of some of his companions, 



in his epistle>, 'Crescens in Gallia;'' 
for we are not to read '■in Galatia,' as 
some mistakenly think, but '■in Gal- 
lia.'' " But there seems to be as little 
authority for this account of St. Luke'c 
ministry as there is for the reading 
Gallia in 2 Tim. iv. 10. 



Chap. XX. Nicolas and the Nicolaitans. 691 

Csesarea was one of the causes that awakened the holy curios- 
ity of Cornelius. 

Whether the Seven to whom Philip belonged are rightly or 
not identified with the order of Deacons, these labors of his 
go far beyond what are described as their special functions, 
and entitle him, before any other who was not an Apostle, to 
the designation under which he re-appears in the Acts, as 
Philip the Evangelist, though still described as " one of the 
Seven." m He is still residing at Csesarea, which he had 
doubtless made the centre of his labors as an Evangelist in 
preaching the Gospel ; and his four virgin daughters possess 
the gift of prophecy. He receives Paul and his company on 
their way to Jerusalem ; and he is visited by prophets and 
elders from that city. At such a place as Caesarea, the work 
of such a man must have helped to bridge over the ever-widen- 
ing gap which threatened to separate the Jewish and Gentile 
Churches. One who had preached Christ to the hated Sa- 
maritan, the swarthy African, the despised Philistine, the men 
of all nations who passed through the sea-port of Palestine, 
was a fit host to welcome the arrival of the Apostle of the 
Gentiles. The house in which he and his daughters had lived 
was pointed out to travelers in the time of Jerome. He is 
said to have died Bishop of Tralles, in Lydia. In other tradi- 
tions he is more or less confounded with Philip the Apostle. 

The remaining Deacons are not again mentioned in the New 
Testament. Prochorus is said by tradition to have been 
consecrated by St. Peter Bishop of Nicomedia in Bithynia : 
Nicanor is placed among the seventy or seventy-two Disciples 
(a mere congeries of New Testament names) by the pseudo- 
Hippolytus, who adds that he died at the time of the martyr- 
dom of Stephen : Tmox is also made one of the seventy-two 
and Bishop of Bostra, where he suffered martyrdom by fire : 
and Parmexas is said to have been martyred at Philippi in 
the reign of Trajan. 

The last of the Seven, Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, has 
obtained a greater but more questionable celebrity ; but there 
is no reason, except the similarity of name, for identifying 
Nicolas with the sect of Nicolaitans mentioned in Rev. ii. 6, 14, 
15. It would seem from these passages that the Nicolaitans 
held that it was lawful " to eat things sacrificed to idols, and 
to commit fornication," in opposition to the decree of the 
Church recorded in Acts xv. 20, 29. The Nicolaitans them- 
selves, at least as early as the time of Irenaeus, claimed the 
Deacon as their founder. Epiphanius, an inaccurate writer, 
195 Acts viii. 194 Acts xxi. 8, 9„ 



692 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX, 



relates some details of the life of Nicolas the Deacon, and de- 
scribes him as gradually sinking into the grossest impurity, 
and becoming the originator of the Mcolaitans and other im- 
moral sects. The same account is believed, at least to some 
extent, by Jerome and other writers in the fourth century ; but 
it is irreconcilable with the character of Nicolas given by 
Clement of Alexandria, an earlier and more discriminating 
writer than Epiphanius. He states that Nicolas led a chaste 
life and brought up his children in purity ; that on a certain 
occasion, having been sharply reproved by the Apostles as a 
jealous husband, he repelled the charge by offering to allow 
his wife to become the wife of any other person ; and that he 
was in the habit of repeating a saying which is ascribed to the 
Apostle Matthias also, — that it is our duty to fight against 
the flesh and to abuse it. His words were perversely interpreted 
by the Nicolaitans as authority for their immoral practices. 
Theodoret, in his account of the sect, repeats the foregoing 
statement of Clement; and charges the Nicolaitans with 
false dealing in borrowing the name of the Deacon. 

§ 20. Of the other fellow-workers of the Apostles it is 
needless to collect the Scriptural notices and the later tradi- 
tions, which have their proper place in a Dictionary of the 
Bible. But the prominence of Timothy and Titus among the 
companions of St. Paul, as well as the peculiar nature of the 
work committed to them, seems to call for a summary notice 
of their lives. 

Titus claims the precedence in the order of the narrative, 
as also no doubt in age. He is not mentioned in the Acts, 19b 
and our materials for his biography must be drawn entirely 
from the notices of him in the Second Epistle to the Corin- 
thians, the Epistle to the Galatians, and the Epistle to Titus 
himself, combined with the Second Epistle to Timothy. Tak- 
ing the passages in the Epistles in the chronological order of 
the events referred to, we turn first to Gal. ii. 1, 3. We con- 
ceive the journey mentioned here to be identical with that 
recorded in Acts xv., in which Paul and Barnabas went from 
Antioch to Jerusalem to the conference which was to decide 
the question of the necessity of circumcision to the Gentiles. 
Here we see Titus in close association with Paul and Barna- 
bas at Antioch. 106 He goes with them to Jerusalem. He is 



195 The reading Tlrov 'Iovctov in 
Acts xviii. 7 is too doubtful to support 
any inference, and is only raised to 
importance by Wieseler in connection 
with a theory that needs artificial help. 



The recent hypothesis of Mr. King 
{Who was St. Titus? Dublin, 1853), 
identifying him with Timothy, is cer^ 
tainly ingenious, but quite untenable. 
196 His birthplace may have been 



Chap. XX. 



Titus. 



693 



in fact one of the tiveq oXXol of Acts xv. 2, who were deputed 
to accompany them from Antioch. His circumcision was 
either not insisted on at Jerusalem, or, if demanded, was 
firmly resisted. He is very emphatically spoken of as a Gen- 
tile, by which is most probably meant that both his parents 
were Gentiles. Here is a double contrast with Timothy, who 
was circumcised by St. Paul's own directions, and one of 
whose parents was Jewish. 1 " Titus would seem, on the oc- 
casion of the council, to have been specially a representative 
of the Church of the uncircumcision. 

It is to our purpose to remark that, in the passage cited 
above, Titus is so mentioned as apparently to imply that he 
had become personally known to the Galatian Christians. 
This again, we combine with two other circumstances, namely, 
that the Epistle to the Galatians and the Second Epistle to 
the Corinthians were probably written within a few months 
of each other, and both during the same journey. From the 
latter of these two Epistles we obtain fuller notices of Titus 
in connection with St. Paul. 

After leaving Galatia, 198 and spending a long time at Ephe 
sus, 199 the Apostle proceeded to Macedonia by way of Troas. 
Here he expected to meet Titus, 200 who had been sent on a 
mission to Corinth. In this hope he was disappointed, but in 
Macedonia Titus joined him. 201 Here we begin to see not 
only the above-mentioned fact of the mission of this disciple 
to Corinth, and the strong personal affection which subsisted 
between him and St. Paul, but also some part of the purport 
of the mission itself, which has been fully explained in the 



histor 



v.- 



But if we proceed further, we discern another 



part of the mission with which he was entrusted. This had 
reference to the collection, at that time in progress, for the 
poor Christians of Judaea. Thus we are prepared for what 
the Apostle now proceeds to do after his encouraging conver- 
sations with Titus regarding the Corinthian Church. He 
sends him back from Macedonia to Corinth, in company with 
two other trustworthy Christians, Trophimus and Tychicus 
(or, as some think, Luke), bearing the Second Epistle, and with 
an earnest request that he would see to the completion of the 
collection, which he had zealously promoted on his late visit. 2 " 
All that has preceded is drawn from direct statements in 



here; but this is quite uncertain. 
The name, which is Roman, proves 
nothing. 

197 Acts xvi. 1,3; 2Tim.i. 5. Hi. 15. 

£9b Acts xviii. 23. 



199 Acts xix. 1-xx. 1 . 

200 2 Cor. ii. 13. 

203 2 Cor. vii. 6, 7, 13-15. 

202 Chap, xviii. §§ 11,12. 

203 2 Cor. viii. 6, 17. 



694 The Apostles and Evangelists. Chap, XX 

the Epistles ; but by indirect though fair inference we can ar- 
rive at something- further, which gives coherence to the rest, 
with additional elucidations of the close connection of Titus 
with St. Paul and the Corinthian Church. It has generally 
been considered doubtful who the r rethren were 204 that took 
the First Epistle to Corinth; but there can be little doubt 
that the messengers who took that first letter were Titus and 
his companion, whoever that might be, who is mentioned 
with him in the second letter. 

A considerable interval now elapses before we come upon 
the next notices of this disciple. St. Paul's first imprison- 
ment is concluded, and his last trial is impending. In the in- 
terval between the two, he and Titus were together in 
Crete. 205 We see Titus remaining in the island when St. 
Paul left it, and receiving there a letter written to him by the 
Apostle. From this letter we gather the following biograph- 
ical details: — In the first place we learn that he was orig- 
inally converted through St. Paul's instrumentality. 206 Next 
we learn the various particulars of the responsible duties 
which he had to discharge in Crete. He is to complete what 
St. Paul had been obliged to leave unfinished, and he is to or- 
ganize the Church throughout the island by appointing pres- 
byters in every city. Instructions are given as to the suita- 
ble character of such presbyters, and we learn further that we 
have here the repetition of instructions previously furnished 
by word of mouth. Next he is to control and bridle the rest- 
less and mischievous Judaizers, and he is to be peremptory in 
so doing. Injunctions in the same spirit are reiterated. 207 
He is to urge the duties of a decorous and Christian life upon 
the women, 208 some of whom possibly had something of an 
official character. He is to be watchful over his own con- 
duct ; he is to impress upon the slaves the peculiar duties of 
their position; he is to check all social and political turbu- 
lence and also all wild theological speculations and to exer- 
cise discipline on the heretical. 209 When we consider all these 
particulars of his duties, we see not only the confidence re- 
posed in him by the Apostle, but the need there was of de- 
termination and strength of purpose, and therefore the prob- 
ability that this was his character ; and all this is enhanced if 
we bear in mind his isolated and unsupported position in 
Crete, and the lawless and immoral character of the Cretans 
themselves, as testified by their own writers. 210 



504 1 Cor. xvi. n, 12. 

5,15 Tit. i. 5. 206 Tit. 

*'? Tit. ii. 1, 15, iii. 8. 



208 Tit. ii. 3, 5. 

209 Tit. iii. 1, 9, 10, 

210 Tit. i. 12, 13. 



Chap. XX. Titus. 695 

The notices which remain are more strictly personal. Titus is 
to look for the arrival in Crete of Artemas and Tychicus, 211 and 
then he is to hasten to join St. Paul at Xicopolis, where the 
Apostle is proposing to pass the "winter. Zenas and Apollos 
are in Crete, or expected there ; for Titus is to send them on 
their journey and supply them with whatever they need for 
it. 212 It is observable that Titus and Apollos are brought 
into juxtaposition here, as they were before in the discussion 
of the mission from Ephesus to Corinth. 

We may observe here that there would be great difficulty 
in inserting the visits to Crete and Xicopolis in any of the 
journeys recorded in the Acts, to say nothing of the other ob- 
jections to giving the Epistle any date anterior to the voyage 
to Rome. On the other hand, there is no difficulty in arrang- 
ing these circumstances, if we suppose St. Paul to have trav- 
eled and written after being liberated from Rome, while thus 
we gain the further advantage of an explanation of what Pa- 
ley has well called the affinity of this Epistle and the first to 
Timothy. Whether Titus did join the Apostle at Xicopolis 
we can not tell. But we naturally connect the mention of 
this place with what St. Paul wrote at no great interval of 
time afterward, in the last of the Pastoral Epistles; 213 for 
Dalmatia lay to the north of Xicopolis, at no great distance 
from it. From the form of the whole sentence, it seems 
probable that this disciple had been with St. Paul in Rome 
during his final imprisonment : but this can not be asserted 
confidently. The touching words of the Apostle in this pas- 
sage might seem to imply some reproach, and we might draw 
from them the conclusion that Titus became a second Denias : 
but on the whole this seems a harsh and unnecessary judgment. 

Whatever else remains is legendary, though it may contain 
elements of truth, Titus is connected by tradition with Dal- 
matia, and he is said to have been an object of much reverence 
in that region. This, however, may simply be a result of the 
passage quoted immediately above : and it is observable that 
of all the churches in modem Dalmatia not one is dedicated 
to him. The traditional connection of Titus with Crete is 
much more specific and constant, though here again we can 
not be certain of the facts. He is said to have been perma- 
nent bishop in the island, and to have died there at an ad- 
vanced age. The modern capital, Ccmdia, appears to claim 
the honor of being his burial-place. In the apocryphal frag- 
ment, De Vita et Actis Titi, by the lawyer Zenas, .Titus is 
called Bishop of Gortyna : and on the old site of Gortyna is 

''"Tit. iii. 12. "- Tit. iii. 13. 2i3 T/'roc elc bakwrUa/, 2 Tim. iv. !Q 



696 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX 



a ruined church, of ancient and solid masonry, which bears 
the name of St. Titus, and where service is occasionally cele- 
brated by priests from the neighboring hamlet of Metropolis. 
The cathedral of Megalo - Castron, in the north of the island, 
is also dedicated to this saint. Lastly, the name of Titus was 
the watch-word of the Cretans when they were invaded by the 
Venetians: and the Venetians themselves, after their conquest 
of the island, adopted him to some of the honors of a patron 
saint. 

Of Timotheus, 214 or, as his name is expressed in the famil- 
iar English abbreviation, Timothy, we have had occasion to 
speak more fully in narrating the life of the Apostle Paul. 
He was born at Lystra, in Lycaonia, the son of one of those 
mixed marriages between a Gentile father and a Jewish moth- 
er, which, though condemned by stricter Jewish opinion, and 
placing their offspring on all but the lowest step in the Jew- 
ish scale of precedence, were yet not uncommon in the later 
periods of Jewish history. The children of such marriages 
were known as Mamzerim (bastards), and stood just above 
the Nethinim. But the reverence of the Jews for their re- 
ligion came in to redeem the disgrace : a bastard who was a 
wise student of the Law was, in theory, above an ignorant 
high-priest: and so the knowledge of the Scriptures, which 
Timothy owed to the care of his grandmother Lois and his 
mother Eunice, may have helped to overcome the natural 
prejudice of his bigoted Jewish neighbors. Of the fruit of 
that pious education; — how it prepared Timothy to receive, 
while still a boy, the Gospel brought bjrPaul to his native 
city ; and how, after gaining honor among the brethren at 
Lystra, Iconium, and even Antioch, he was chosen by Paul, 
on his second visit to Lycaonia, to share that fellowship of 
labor and of love which only ceased with the Apostle's 
death ; — of his circumcision and ordination ; — and of his part 
in Paul's work, till he was called to comfort his last hours 
and to witness his martyrdom at Rome ; — we have spoken in 
former chapters. Their companionship begins with the sec- 
ond missionary journey, when Timothy may be regarded as 
supplying the void caused by the difference with Barnabas. 
If Barnabas had been to Paul as the brother and friend of 
©arly days, he had now found one whom he could claim as his 



2 4 Tijuodeoc, i. e., honoring God. or 
honored of God, a Greek translation 
of a Hebrew name, common in the 
Maccabacan period. It is also a pure 
Greek name, well known in classical 



history and literature. Our translat- 
ors have retained the full Greek 
form in every case except 2 Cor. i. 1, 
Philem. 1, iieb. xiii. 23. and the two 
Epistles to Timothy. 



Chap. XX. Timothy. 697 

own true son by a spiritual parentage. 216 That Timothy had 
now (a.d. 49 or 53) only just reached manhood, is evident 
from St. Paul's addressing him, in the First Epistle, as still 
young. Following Paul through Asia Minor into Europe, he 
came to Philippi ; and though his tender youth was spared 
the sufferings of Paul and Silas, the Apostle calls the Philip- 
pians to witness how zealously he shared their work : — " Ye 
know the proof of him, that as a son with his father, he 
hath served with me in the Gospel." 21Db His name does not 
appear in the account of St. Paul's work at Thessalonica, 
and it is possible that he remained some time at Philippi, 
and then acted as the messenger by whom the members of 
that Church sent what they were able to give for the Apos- 
tle's wants. 216 He appears, however, at Bercea, and remains 
there when Paul and Silas are obliged to leave, 217 going on 
afterward to join his master at Athens. 218 From Athens he 
is sent back to Thessalonica, as having special gifts for com- 
forting and teaching. He returns from Thessalonica, not to 
Athens but to Corinth, and his name appears united with St. 
Paul's in the opening words of both the letters written from 
that city to the Thessalonians. 219 Here also he was apparent- 
ly active as an Evangelist, 220 and on him, probably, with some 
exceptions, devolved the duty of baptizing the new converts. 221 
Of the next five years of his life we have no record, and we 
can infer nothing beyond a continuance of his active service 
as St. Paul's companion. When we next meet with him, it 
is as being sent on in advance, when the Apostle was con- 
templating the long journey which was to include Macedonia, 
Achaia, Jerusalem and Rome. 222 He was sent to " bring the 
churches into remembrance of the ways" of the Apostle. 223 
We trace hi the words of the " father " an anxious desire to 
guard the son from the perils which, to his eager but sensi- 
tive temperament, would be most trying. 224 His route would 
take him through the churches which he had been instru- 
mental in founding, and this would give him scope for exer- 
cising the gifts which were afterward to be displayed in a 
still more responsible office. It is probable, from the pas- 
sages already referred to, that, after accomplishing the special 
work assigned to him, he returned by the same route and 
met St. Paul according to a previous arrangement, 225 and waB 



215 1 Cor. iv. 17; 1 Tim. i. 2 ; 2 
Tim. i. 2. 

215b Phil. ii. 22. 216 Phil. iv. 15. 
217 Acts xvii. 14. 218 1 Thess. iii. 2. 
219 1 Thess. i. 1; 2 Thess. i. 1. 
Ee 



220 2 Cor. i. 19. 221 1 Cr,i\ i- 14, 

222 Acts xix. 22. 

223 1 Cor. iv. 17. 

224 1 Cor. xvi. 10. 
220 1 Cor. xvi. 11. 



698 



The Apostles and Evangelists. 



Chap. XX. 









thus with him when the Second Epistle was written to the 
Church of Corinth. 226 He returns with the Apostle to that 
city, and joins in messages of greeting to the disciples whom 
he had known personally at Corinth, and who had since found 
their way to Rome. 227 He forms one of the company of 
friends who go with St. Paul to Philippi and then sail by 
themselves, waiting for his arrival by a different ship. 238 
Whether he continued his journey to Jerusalem, and what 
became of him during St. Paul's two years' imprisonment and 
voyage, are points on which we must remain uncertain. He 
must have joined Paul, however, apparently soon after his ar- 
rival in Rome, and was with him when the Epistles to the 
Philippians, to the Colossians, and to Philemon were written. 229 
From the two Epistles addressed to him, we are able to 
put together a few notices as to his later life. It follows 
from 1 Tim. i. 3 that he and his master, after the release of 
the latter from his imprisonment, revisited the proconsular 
Asia, that the Apostle then continued his journey to Mace- 
donia, while the disciple remained at Ephesus. We have al- 
ready had occasion to describe his work there as portrayed 
in St. Paul's First Epistle to him. In the Second Epistle the 
Apostle's deep personal feeling utters itself yet more fully. 
The friendship of fifteen years was drawing to a close, and all 
memories connected with it throng upon the mind of the old 
man, now ready to be offered, the blameless youth, 230 the holy 
household, the solemn ordination, the tears at parting. 231 The 
last recorded words of the Apostle express the earnest hope, 
repeated yet more earnestly, that he might see him once 
again. 232 Timotheus is to come before winter, to bring with 
him the cloak for which in that winter there would be need. 233 
Of the spirit in which this urgent invitation was sent we 
have already spoken. We may hazard the conjecture that 
Timothy reached Paul in time, and that the last hours of the 
teacher were soothed by the presence of the disciple whom he 
loved so truly. He continues, according to the old traditions, 
to act as bishop of Ephesus, 234 and dies a martyr's death un- 
der Domitian or Nerva. 235 The great Festival of Artemis led 
him to protest against the license and frenzy which ac- 
companied it. The mob were roused to fury, and put him to 
death with clubs. 




226 2 Cor. i. 1. 

227 Horn. xvi. 21. 

228 Acts xx. 3, 6. 

229 Phil. i. 1, ii. 19 



Philcm. 1 



230 



Col. 
2 Tim. iii. 



i. .1 

15. 



231 2 Tim. i. 4-6. 

232 2 Tim. iv. 9, 12. 

233 2 Tim. iv. 13. 

231 Euseb. II E. iii. 14. 
235 Nicepli. H. E. iii. 11 



APPENDIX I. 



THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

i 1 The New Testament the standard of the Christian faith— Its relation to the Old Tes. 
tament. 5 2. Language of the New Testament, Greek— Eeason of this. § 3. History 
of the Canon of the New Testament. § 4. Contents and arrangement of the New Tes- 
tament. § 5. The Four Gospels— Matthew. § 6. Mark. § 7. Luke. § S. John. 
§ 9. The Acts of the Apostles. § 10. The Fourteen Epistles of St. Paul — tlieir or- 
der — Romans: i. and ii. Corinthians : G-alatians : EniESiANs: PniLTrriANS: Co- 
lossians: i. and ii. Thessalonians : i. and ii. Timothy : Titus: Philemon: Epistle 
to tue Hebrews. § 11. The Catholic Epistles — James. § 12. i. and ii. Peter. § 13. 
John, Epistles i. ii., iii. § 14. Epistle of Jude. § 15. Revelation of St. Joun the 
Divine. 

§ 1. The very title of the New Testament, or rather the New Covenant, 
indicates its relation to the Old. The principle of that relation is express- 
ed in our Lord's own words: "Think not that I am come to destroy the 
Law and the Prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfill." And as, at 
every stage of his earthly course, to the very time of his ascension, he ap- 
pealed to theW^ten.standards of Jewish faith, from which also his Apostles 
argued, in all their preachings, that he was the Christ ; so they, in their 
turn, provided a permanent written standard of Christian truth. Their 
own witness is most emphatic to this their purpose, and to the aid of the 
Holy Spirit in its accomplishment. St. Luke's preface to his Gospel, which 
he writes to Theophilus, " that he might know the certainty of those things 
in which he was instructed:" ' St. John's declaration, " These things are 
written in this book, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son 
of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name," 2 followed 
by the attestation, "This is the disciple that testifieth of these things and 
wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true:" 3 St. Paul's 
frequent allusions to the authority of his Epistles : St. Peter's testimony, 
placing those Epistles on a level with the other Scriptures: these, to say 
nothing of innumerable allusions to the Scriptures as the standard of faith, 
are alone sufficient proofs of the principle, that the Christian Covenant, 
like the Jewish, was to be embodied in a Book, a collection of writings in 
which, as of old, " Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.'' 

§ 2. That universal character, in which the Christian Covenant differs 
from the Jewish, is seen in the very language, in which each is expressed. 
The Hebrew was the peculiar dialect of the chosen race, to whom the an- 
cient oracles were committed as a deposit : the Greek became, by the con- 
quests of Alexander, the universal language of the civilized world. And as 
that world was reduced to one Empire, in which Judaea herself was the last 
province incorporated, that so the preachers of the Gospel might have free 

i Luke L 3, 4. 2 John xx. 30, 31. 3 j^m XI i, 24, 



700 



Boofcs of the New Testament, 



Appendix I. 




course, so did a universal language give them a free audience ; and the hooks 
which they wrote in Greek could be read from the Atlantic and Atlas to 
the Euphrates and Caucasus. Even if two books of the New Testament — 
the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews — were originally 
written for Jews in their own language, they form not even an exception to 
the statement ; for the advocates of their Hebrew origin admit an equally, 
or almost equally, original Greek version. 

But the Greek of the New Testament is a peculiar form of the Hellenic 
tongue, and requires distinct study. One of the most fruitful sources of 
error in the interpretation of the New Testament is the attempt to read it 
by the sole light of classical Greek. 4 

§ .3. The New Testament, like the Old, is not merely a collection of 
books, each preferring an independent claim to divine authority. As a 
Book, one united whole, it claims to be the Canon, or rule, of Christian 
faith. The complete Canon of the New Testament, as commonly received 
at present, was ratified at the third Council of Carthage (a.d. 397), and 
from that time it was accepted throughout the Latin Church, though occa- 
sional doubts as to the Epistle to the Hebrews still remained. 

§ 4. The New Testament consists of 27 books, which may be thus classi- 
fied: 

I. The Five Historical Books ; namely, the Four Gospels, and 
the Acts of the Apostles. 

II. The Fourteen Epistles of St. Paul ; namely, Ten addressed 
to eight Chu?-ches, and Four to three indhnduals — Philemon, Timothy, 
and Titus. 

III. The Seven Catholic or General Epistles ; tlfe Second and 
Third of John, though addressed to individuals, being placed as ap- 
pendices to the First. 

IV. The Revelation of St. John, though in the form of an 
Epistle to the Seven Churches of Asia, is rightly placed in a class by 
itself, as the one great prophetical book of the New Testament. 

The order of the Books varies in ancient MSS. In all, the Gospels and 
Acts stand first, and the Revelation last ; but in the most ancient texts the 
General Epistles precede the Pauline, and in some the Epistle to the He- 
brews stands between the Galatians and Ephesians. 

Much that might have been said of the several books has been antici- 
pated in the History. What remains to be added relates chiefly to their gen- 
uineness and other points of criticism. 



I. THE FIVE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 



§ 5. The Four Gospels have already been treated of as a whole, esps- 
cially in connection with the theories devised to account for their relations 
to one another. 5 Some things have to be added about them as separate 
Books. 

Gospel of St. Matthew. — (1.) Language in which it was written. — This 
Gospel was written by the Apostle, according to the testimony ©f all antiq- 
uity ; but there has been much discussion as to the language in which 
it was originally composed. It must, however, be observed that every early 

* Some remarks on the language of the New Testament are given in Dictionary oj 
the Bible, vol. ii. p 531. s See Appendix to Book II., p. 3G0 foil- 



Appendix I. 



The Five Historical Books. 



701 



writer who mentions that St. Matthew wrote a Gospel at all says that ho 
wrote in Hebrew (that is in the Syro-Chaldaic) and in Palestine in the 
first century. Moreover every early writer that has come down to us uses 
the Greek of St. Matthew, and this with the definite recognition that it is a 
translation; hence we may be sure that the Greek copy belongs to the 
Apostolic age, having been thus authoritatively used from and up to that 
time. Thus the question is not the authority of the Greek translation., 
which comes from the time when the Churches enjoyed Apostolic guidance, 
but whether there was a Hebrew original from which it had been trans 
lated. The witnesses to the Hebrew original were men sufficiently compe* 
tent to attest so simple a fact, especially seeing that they are relied on for 
what is far more important — that St. Matthew wrote a Gospel at all. 

(2.) Citations from Old Testament. — A characteristic of this Gospel is its 
constant citations from the Old Testament. The number of passages in the 
Gospel which refer to it are about 65. In St. Luke they are 43. But in 
St. Matthew there are 43 verbal citations of the Old Testament ; the number 
of these direct appeals to its authority in St. Luke is only about 19. This 
fact is very significant of the character and original purpose of the two nar- 
ratives. 6 

(3.) Genuineness of the First Two Clxapters. — The genuineness of the 
first two chapters of the Gospel has been questioned ; but it is estAblished 
on satisfactory grounds, (i.) All the Old MSS. and Versions contain these 
chapters ; and they are quoted by the Fathers of the second and third centu- 
ries. Celsus also knew ch. ii. (ii.) Their contents would naturally form part of 
a Gospel intended primarily for the Jews, (iii.) The commencement of ch. 
iii. is dependent on ii. 23 ; and in iv. 13 there is a reference to ii. 23. (iv.) 
In constructions and expressions they are similar to the rest of the Gospel. 

(4.) Time and place at which the Gospel was written. — The time when the 
Gospel was written is uncertain ; but the testimony of old writers that 
Matthew's Gospel is the earliest must be taken into account; 7 this would 
bring it before a.d. 58-60, the supposed date of St. Luke. The most prob- 
able supposition is that it was written between 50 and 60 ; the exact year 
can not even be guessed at. There is, however, not much doubt that the 
Gospel was written in Palestine. 

(5.) Purpose of the Gospel. — The Gospel itself tells us by plain internal 
evidence that it was written for Jewish converts, to show them in Jesus of 
Nazareth the Messiah of the Old Testament whom they expected. Jewish 
converts over all the world seem to have been intended, and not merely 
Jews in Palestine. 8 Jesus is the Messiah of the Old Testament, recogniza- 
ble by Jews from his acts as such. 9 Knowledge of Jewish customs and of 
the country is presupposed in the readers. 10 Jerusalem is the holy city. 
Jesus is the son of David, of the seed of Abraham ; n is to be born of a vir- 
gin in David's place, Bethlehem; 12 must flee into Egypt and be recalled 
thence; 13 must have a forerunner, John the Baptist; 14 was to labor in the 



6 A complete list of these passages is giv- 
en in the Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 
277. 

i Origen in Eus. H. E. vi. 25 ; Irenseus iii. 
1 : conip. Muratorian fragment, as far as it 
remains, in Credner's Kanon. 

8 Irenaeua, Origen, and Jerome say simply 
that it was written " for the Hebrews." 



9 Matt. i. 22, ii. 5, 15, 17, iv. 14, viii. 17, xii. 
17-21, xiii. 35, xxi. 4, xxvii. 9. 

io Matt. xv. 1, 2, with Mark vii. 1-4; Matt, 
xxvii. 62, with Mark xv. 42 ; Luke xxiiL 54; 
John xix. 14, 31, 42, and other places. 

ii Matt. i. 1, ix. 2T, xii. 23, xv. 22, xx. 30, 
xxi. 9. 15. 12 i. 22, ii. 6. 

i3 ii. 15, 19. i* iii. 8, xi. 10. 



702 



Boohs of the New Testament. 



Appendix I. 




outcast Galilee that sat in darkness; 15 his healing was a promised mark 
of his office; 16 and so Avas his mode of teaching in parables; 17 he enter- 
ed the holy city as Messiah ; 18 was rejected by the people, in fulfillment of 
a prophecy, 19 and deserted by his disciples in the same way. 20 The Gospel 
h pervaded by one principle, the fulfillment of the Law and of the Messi- 
anic prophecies in the person of Jesus. This at once sets it in opposition 
to the Judaism of the time ; for it rebuked the Pharisaic interpretations of 
the Law, 21 and proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God and the Saviour of 
the world through his blood — ideas which were strange to the cramped and 
limited Judaism of the Christian era. 

(6.) Contents of the Gospel. — There are traces in this Gospel of an occa- 
sional superseding of the chronological order. Its principal divisions are — 
I. The introduction to the Ministry of Christ, i.-iv. II. The laying down 
of the new Law for the Church in the Sermon on the Mount, v.-vii. III. 
Events in historical order, showing him as the worker of Miracles, viii. and 
ix. IV. The appointment of Apostles to preach the Kingdom, x. V. The 
doubts and oppositions excited by his activity in divers minds — in John's 
disciples, in sundry cities., in the Pharisees, xi. and xii. VI. A series of 
parables on the nature of the Kingdom, xiii. VII. Similar to V. The 
effects of his ministry on his countrymen, on Herod, the people of Gennes- 
aret, Scribes and Pharisees, and on multitudes, whom he feeds, xiii. 
53-xvi. 12. VIII. Revelation to his disciples of his sufferings. His in- 
structions to them thereupon, xvi. 13-xviii. 35. IX. Events of a jour- 
ney to Jerusalem, xix., xx. X. Entrance into Jerusalem and resistance 
to him there, and denunciation of the Pharisees, xxi.-xxiii. XI. Last 
discourses ; Jesus as Lord and Judge of Jerusalem, and also of the world, 
xxiv., xxv. XII. Passion and Resurrection, xxvi.-xxviii. 

§ 6. The Gospel of St. Mark. — The characteristics of this Gospel, 
the shortest of the four inspired records, will appear from the discussion of 
the various questions that have been raised about it. 

(1.) Sowces of this Gospel. — The tradition that it gives the teaching of 
Peter rather than of the rest of the Apostles, has been already alluded to. 22 
John the Presbyter is spoken of by Papias as the interpreter of Peter. Ire- 
nseus calls Mark " interpres et sectator Petri," and cites the opening and 
the concluding words of the Gospel as we now possess them. 23 Eusebius 
says, on the authority of Clement of Alexandria, that the hearers of Peter 
at Rome desired Mark, the follower of Peter, to leave with them a record 
of his teaching; upon which Mark wrote his Gospel, which the Apostle 
afterward sanctioned with his authority, and directed that it should be read 
in the Churches. Tertullian speaks of the Gospel of Mark as being con- 
nected with Peter, and so having Apostolic authority. If the evidence of 
the Apostle's connection with this Gospel rested wholly on these passages, 
it would not be sufficient, since the witnesses, though many in number, are 
not all independent of each other. But there are peculiarities in the Gos- 
pel which are best explained by the supposition that Peter in some way 
superintended its composition. While there is hardly any part of its narra- 
tive that is not common to it and some other Gospel, in the manner of the 
narrative there is often a marked character, which puts aside at once the 

" iv. 14-16. 

" viii. 17, xii. 17 " xiii. 14. , 20 xxv j. 31, 56. 9» v., xxiii. 

»• xxi. 5-16. is xxL 42. ' 22 see p. 6S6. 2S Hcer. iii., x. 6. 



ArpENDix I. The Five Historical Books. 703 

supposition that we have here a mere epitome of Matthew and Luke. The 
picture of the same events is far more vivid ; touches are introduced such 
as could only be noted by a vigilant eye-witness, and such as make us al- 
most eye-witnesses of the Redeemer's doings. To this must be added that 
while Mark goes over the same ground for the most part as the other Evan- 
gelists, and especially Matthew, there are many facts thrown in which 
prove that we are listening to an independent witness. Thus the humble 
origin of Peter is made known through him, 24 and his connection with Ca- 
pernaum; 25 he tells us that Levi was " the son of Alphseus," 26 that Peter 
was the name given by our Lord to Simon, 27 and Boanerges a surname 
added by him to the names of two others ; 2H he assumes the existence of an- 
other body of disciples wider than the Twelve : 29 we owe to him the name 
of Jairus, 30 the word " carpenter" applied to our Lord, 31 the nation of the 
" Syro-Phcenician" woman; 32 he substitutes Dalmanutha for the " Mag- 
dala" of Matthew; 33 he names Bartimaeus ; 34 he alone mentions that our 
Lord would not suffer any man to carry any vessel through the Temple; 35 
and that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus. 36 All 
these are tokens of an independent writer, different from Matthew and 
Luke, and in the absence of other traditions it is natural to look to Peter. 
One might hope that much light would be thrown on this question from 
the way in which Peter is mentioned in the Gospel ; but the evidence is 
not so clear as might have been expected. 

(2.) This Gospel was written primarily for Gentiles. — The Evangelist 
scarcely refers to the Old Testament in his own person. The word Law 
does not once occur. The genealogy of our Lord is not set forth. Othor 
matters interesting chiefly to the Jews are likewise omitted ; such as the 
references to the Old Testament and Law in Matt. xii. 5-7, the reflections 
on the request of the Scribes and Pharisees for a sign, Matt. xii. 38-45 ; the 
parable of the king's son, Matt. xxii. 1-14 ; and the awful denunciation o*" 
the Scribes and Pharisees in Matt, xxiii. Explanations are given in some 
places, which Jews could not require: thus, Jordan is a "river;" 37 the 
Pharisees, etc. " used to fast," 38 and other customs of theirs are described ; M 
" the time of figs was not yet," i. e., at the season of the Passover; 40 the 
Sadducees' worst tenet is mentioned ; 41 the Mount of Olives is "over against 
the Temple ;" 42 at the Passover men eat " unleavened bread," 43 and expla~ 
nations are given which Jews would not need. 44 From the general testi- 
mony of these and other places, whatever may be objected to an inference 
from one or other among them, there is little doubt but that the Gospel 
was meant for use in the first instance among Gentiles. 

(3.) Time when the Gospel was written. — It will be understood, from what 
has been said, that nothing positive can be asserted as to the time when 
this Gospel was written. The traditions are contradictory. Irenaeus says 
that it was written after the death of the Apostle Peter ; but in other pas- 
sages it is supposed to be written during Peter's life-time. In the Bible there 



*« Mark i. 10-20. 29 ,-. 29. 


38 Murk ii. 18; Matt. ix. 14 


28 ii. 14. 27 Hi. 16. 


39 Mark vii. 1-4 ; Matt. xv. 1, 2. 


2S iii. 17. 


40 Mark xi. 13; Matt. xxi. 19. 


29 iii. 32, iv. 10, 33, viii. 34, xiv. 51, 52. 


4i Mark xii. IS. 


30 v. 22. 3i vi . 3. 


42 Mark xiii. 3 ; Matt. xxiv. 3. 


32 vii. 26. 3J viii. 10. 


43 Mark xiv. 1-12 ; Matt. xxvi. 2, 17. 


34 x. 46. 85 xi# 16# 


44 Mark xv. 6, 16, 42 : Matt, xxvii. 15, 


38 xv. 21. 37 Mark i. 5 ; Matt. iii. 6. 


57. 



704 



Books of the New Testament. 



Appendix 1. 






is nothing to decide the question. It is not likely that it dates before the 
reference to Mark in the Epistle to the Colossians, 45 where he is only intro- 
duced as a relative of BarnaLas, as if this were his greatest distinction ; and 
this Epistle was written about a.d. 62. On the other hand it was written 
before the destruction of Jerusalem. 46 Probably, therefore, it was written 
between a.d. 63 and 70. 

(4.) Place where the Gospel was written. — The place is as uncertain as 
the time. Clement, Eusebius, Jerome and Epiphanius pronounce for 
Rome, and many moderns take the same view. Chrysostom thinks Alex- 
andria ; but this is not confirmed by other testimony. 

(5.) Genuineness of the Gospel. — All ancient testimony makes Mark the 
author of a certain Gospel, and that this is the Gospel which has come clown 
to us there is not the least historical ground for doubting. Owing to the 
very few sections peculiar to Mark, evidence from patristic quotation is 
somewhat difficult to produce. Justin Martyr, hoAvever, quotes ch. ix. 44, 
46, 48, xii. 30, and iii. 17, and Irenreus cites both the opening and clos- 
ing words : 47 — an important testimony in any case, but doubly so from the 
doubt that has been cast on the closing verses. 48 The passage is rejected 
by the majority of modern critics, on the testimony of MSS. and of old 
writers, and on the internal evidence of the diction. Though it is probable 
that this section is from a differen^iand, and was annexed to the Gospel 
soon after the time of the Apostles, it must be remembered that it is found 
in three of the four great uncial MSS. (A. C. D.), besides being quoted 
without any question by Irenasus. With the exception of these few verses, 
the genuineness of the Gospel is placed above the reach of reasonable 
doubt. 

(6.) Style and Diction. — The purpose of the Evangelist seems to be to 
place before us a vivid picture of the earthly acts of Jesus. The style is 
peculiarly suitable to this. He uses the present tense instead of the nar- 
rative aorist, almost in every chapter. The word (vleuc, " straightway," 
is used by St. Mark forty-one times. The first person is preferred to the 
third. 49 Precise and minute details as to persons, places and numbers, 
abound in the narrative. All these tend to give force and vividness to the 
picture of the human life of our Lord. On the other side, the facts are not 
very exactly arranged ; they are often connected by nothing more definite 
than nai and ttoXlv. Its conciseness sometimes makes this Gospel more ob- 
scure than the others. 60 

(7.) Contents of the Gospel. — Though this Gospel has little historical 
matter which is not shared with some other, it would be a great error to 
suppose that the voice of Mark could have been silenced without injury to 
the divine harmony. The minute painting of the scenes in which the Lord 
took part, the fresh and lively mode of the narration, the very absence of 
the precious discourses of Jesus, Avhich, interposed between his deeds, would 
have delayed the action, all give to this Gospel a character of its own. It 
is the history of the Avar of Jesus against sin and evil in the world during 
the time that he dwelt as a man among men. Its motto might well be, as 
Lange observes, those words of Peter : " How God anointed Jesus of Naz- 
areth with the Holy Ghost and with power ; who went about doing good, 



45 Col. iv. 10. 

46 Mark xiii. 13, 24-30, 33, etc. 

4T Uczr. iii., x. 6. « Mark xvi. 9-19. 



49 iv. 39, v. 8, 9, 12, vi. 2, 3, 31, 33, ix. 25^ 
33, xii. G. 
5 ° See Mark i. 13, ix. 5, 0, iv. 10-34. 



Appendix I. The Five Historical Books. 705 

and healing all that were oppressed of the devil ; for God was with him." 51 
It develops a series of acts in this conflict, broken by times of rest and re- 
freshing, in the wilderness or on the mountain. It records the exploits 
of the Son of God in the war against Satan, and the retirement in which, 
after each, he returned to commune with his Father, and bring back fresh 
strength for new encounters. Thus the passage from ii. 1 to iii. G describes 
his first conflict with the Pharisees, and it ends in a conspiracy of Pharisees 
and Herodians for his destruction, before which he retires to the sea. 52 The 
passage from iii. 13 to vi. 6 contains the account of his coniisct with the 
unbelief of his own countrymen, ending with those remarkable words, "And 
he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few 
sick folk and healed them :" then constrained (so to speak) in his working 
by their resistance, he retired for that time from the struggle, and "went 
round about the villages teaching." 53 

The principal divisions in the Gospel are these: — 1. John the Baptist 
and Jesus. 54 2. Acts of Jesus in Galilee. 55 3. Teaching in I'eraea, where 
the spirit of the new kingdom of the Gospel is brought, out. 58 k. Teaching, 
trials, and sufferings in Jerusalem. Jesus revealing himself as> Founder of 
the new kingdom. 57 5. Resurrection. 58 

§ 7. The Gospel of St. Luke. — (1.) Origin of the Gospel. — The pref- 
ace, contained in the first four verses of the Gospel, describes the object of 
its writer : — " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order 
a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even 
as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-wit- 
nesses and ministers of the word ; it seemed good to me also, having had 
perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in 
order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of 
those things wherein thou hast been instructed." Here are several facts to 
be observed. There were many narratives of the life of our Lord current 
>at the early time when Luke wrote his Gospel. The word "many" can 
not apply to Matthew and Mark, because it must at any rate include more 
than two, and because it is implied that former laborers leave something 
still to do, and that the writer will supersede or supplement them either in 
whole or in part. The ground of fitness for the task St. Luke places in his 
having carefully followed out the whole course of events from the beginning. 
He does not claim the character of an eye-witness from the first ; but 
possibly he may have been a witness of some part of our Lord's doings. 

The ancient opinion, that Luke wrote his Gospel under the influence of 
Paul, rests on the authority of Irenseus, Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius. 
The two first assert that we have in Luke the Gospel preached by Paul ; 59 
Origen calls it " the Gospel quoted by Paul," alluding to Rom. ii. 16 ; G0 and 
Eusebius refers Paul's words, " according to my Gospel," 61 to that of Luke, "" 
in which Jerome concurs. 63 The language of the preface is against the 
notion of any exclusive influence of St. Paul. The Evangelist, a man on 
whom the Spirit of God was, made the history of the Saviour's life the sub- 
ject of research, and with materials so obtained he wrote, under the guid- 
ance of the Spirit that was upon him, the history now before us. The fout 



5i Acts x. 3S. 5 2 Mark iii. 7. 

53 Mark vi. 6. 5t i. 1-13. 

55 i. 14-ix. 50. 56 x. 1-34. 

s^ x. 33-xv. 47. 58 xv i. 

Ee 2 



59 Iren. cont. Hcer. iii. 1 ; Tert. cont. Marc 
r. 5. 60 Euseb. H. E. vi. 25. 

6i 2 Tim. ii. 18 
62 H. E. iii. 4. 63 Be Vir. III. 1. 



706 Boohs of the New Testament. Appendix I. 

verses could not have been put at the head of a history composed under the 
exclusive guidance of Paul or of any one Apostle, and as little could they 
have introduced a Gospel simply communicated by another. Yet if we 
compare St. Paul's account of the institution of the Lord's Supper C4 with 
that in St. Luke's Gospel, 65 none will think that the verbal similarity could 
be accidental. A less obvious parallel between 1 Cor. xv. 3 and Luke xxiv. 
26, 27, more of thought than of expression, tends the same way. The truth 
seems to be that St. Luke, seeking information from every quarter, sought 
it especially from the preaching of his beloved master, St. Paul ; and the 
Apostle in his turn employed the knowledge acquired from other sources by 
his disciple. Thus the preaching of the Apostle, founded on the same body 
of facts, and the same arrangement of them, as the rest of the Apostles used, 
became assimilated especially to that which St. Luke set forth in his narrative. 

(2.) Date of the Gospel, and place where it was written. — It is known 
that this Gospel was in use before the year 120. From internal evidence 
the date can be more nearly fixed. From Acts i. 1, it is clear that it was 
written before the Acts of the Apostles. The latest time actually mention- 
ed in the Acts is the term of two years during which Paul dwelt at Rome 
" in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him." 66 The 
writer, who has tracked the footsteps of Paul hitherto with such exactness, 
leaves him here abruptly, without making known the result of his appeal to 
Caesar, or the works in which he engaged afterward. No other motive for 
this silence can be suggested than that the writer, at the time when he pub- 
lished the Acts, had no more to tell ; and in that case the book of the Acts 
was completed about the end of the second year of St. Paul's imprisonment, 
that is, about a.d. 63. How much earlier the Gospel, described as " the 
former treatise," 67 may have been written is uncertain ; but the words imply 
some considerable interval between the two productions. The opinion thus 
becomes very probable, that it was written at Caesarea during St. Paul's im- 
prisonment there, a.d. 58-60. The Gospel of St. Matthew Avas probably 
written about the same time ; and neither Evangelist appears to have used 
the other, although both made use of that form of oral teaching which the 
Apostles had gradually come to employ. 

(3.) Purposes for which the Gospel was written. — The Evangelist professes 
to write that Theophilus " might know the certainty of those things wherein 
he had been instructed." 68 Who was this Theophilus ? Some have supposed 
that it is a significant name, applicable not to one man, but to any amans 
Dei ; but the addition of Kpanaroc, a term of honor which would be used 
toward a man of station, or sometimes toward a personal friend, seems 
against this. He was, then, an existing person. Some indications are 
given in the Gospel about him. He was not an inhabitant of Palestine, for 
the Evangelist minutely describes the position of places which to such a one 
would be well known. It is so with Capernaum, 69 Nazareth, 70 Arimathea, 71 
the country of the Gadarenes, 7 -' the distance of Mount Olivet and Emmaus 
from Jerusalem. 73 By the same test he probably was not a Macedonian, 74 
nor an Athenian, 75 nor a Cretan. 76 But that he was a native of Italy, and 
perhaps an inhabitant of Rome, is probable from similar data. In tracing 

"« 1 Cor. xi. 23-25. es Luke xxii. 19, 20. ) ™ i. 26. 71 xxiii 51. 72 via. 2G. 

88 Acts xxviii. 30, 31. " Acts i. 1. 73 Acts i. 12 ; Luk xxiv. 13. 

• 8 Luke i. 4. « 9 Luke iv. 31. I ™ Acts xvi. 12. 75 Acts xvii. 21. 

7 * Acts xxvii. 8, 12. 



Appendix I. The Five Historical Books. 707 

St. Paul's journey to Rome, places which an Italian might be supposed not 
to know are described minutely ; 77 but when he comes to Sicily and Italy 
this is neglected. Syracuse and Rhegium, even the more obscure Puteoli, 
and Appii Forum and the Three Taverns, are mentioned as to one like 
ly to know them. All that emerges from this argument is, that the 
person for whom Luke wrote in the first instance was a Gentile read- 
er. There are other marks of the Gospel being intended for Gentile 
rather than Jewish converts. The genealogy of Jesus is traced to Adam, 
not from Abraham ; so as to connect him with the whole human race, and 
not merely with the Jews. Luke describes the irission of the Seventy, which 
number has been usually supposed to be typical of all nations ; as twelve, the 
number of the Apostles, represents the Jews and their twelve tribes. As 
each Gospel has, within certain limits, its own character and mode of treat- 
ment, we shall recognize with Olshausen that " St. Luke has the peculiar 
power of exhibiting, with great clearness of conception and truth (especially 
in the long account of Christ's journey, from ix. 51 to xviii. 34), not so 
much the discourses of Jesus as his conversations, with all the incidents 
that gave rise to them, with the remarks of those who were present, and 
with the final results." 

(4.) Integrity of the Gospel — the first two Chapters. — A special question has 
been raised about the first two chapters. The chief objection against them 
is founded on the garbled opening of Marcion's Gospel, who omits the first 
two chapters, and connects iii. 1 immediately with iv. 31. But any ob- 
jection founded on this would apply to the third chapter as well ; and the 
history of our Lord's childhood seems to have been known to and quoted by 
Justin Martyr 78 about the time of Marcion. There is therefore no real 
ground for distinguishing between the first two chapters and the rest ; and 
the arguments for the genuineness of St. Luke's Gospel apply to the whole 
inspired narrative as we now possess it. 

(5) Contents of the Gospel. — This Gospel contains — 1. A preface; i. 1-4. 

2. An account of the time preceding the ministry of Jesus ; i. 5-ii. 52. 

3. Several accounts of discourses and acts of our Lord, common to Luke. 
Matthew, and Mark, related for the most part in their order, and belonging 
to Capernaum and the neighborhood ; iii. 1-ix. 50. 4. A collection of 
similar accounts, referring to a certain journey to Jerusalem, most of them 
peculiar to Luke ; ix. 51-xviii. 14. 5. An account of the sufferings, death, 
and resurrection of Jesus, common to Luke with the other Evangelists, ex- 
cept as to some of the accounts of what took place after the resurrection ; 
xxviii. 15 to the end. 

§ 8. The Gospel of St. John. — (1.) Authority. — No doubt has been 
entertained at any time in the Church, either of the canonical authority of 
this Gospel, or of its being written by St. John the Apostle. No other book 
of the New Testament is authenticated by testimony of so early a date as 
that of the disciples which is embodied in the Gospel itself. 79 Among 
the Apostolic Fathers, Ignatius appears to have known and recognized it. 

(2) Place and time at which it was written. — Ephesus and Patmos are 
the two places mentioned by early writers ; and the weight of evidence seems 
to preponderate in favor of Ephesus. The Apostle's sojourn at Ephesus 
probably began after St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy were written, i. e., aftel 

77 Acta xxvii. 8, 12, 16. 79 John xxi. 24, £5. 

7U See Apology, i. § 33, and an allusion, in the Dial, cum Tryph. 100. 



708 Books of the New Testament Appendix I. 

a.d. 66. Eusebius specifies the fourteenth year of Domitian, i. e., a.d. 95, as 
the year of the banishment to Patmos. Probably the date of the Gospel 
may lie about midway between these two, about a.d. 78. But some place 
it after the Apocalypse. 

(3.) Occasion and scope. — After the destruction of Jerusalem, a.d. 69, 
Ephesus probably became the centre of the active life of Eastern Christen- 
dom. This half-Greek half-Oriental city contained a large church of faith- 
ful Christians, a multitude of zealous Jews, an indigenous population de- 
voted to the worship of a strange idol, whose image was borrowed from the 
East, its name from the West. It was the place to which Cerinthus chose 
to bring the doctrines which he devised or learned at Alexandria. The 
Gospel was obviously addressed primarily to Christians, not to heathens. 
The chief object of the writer was probably to supplement the earlier Gos- 
pels. There is no intrinsic improbability in the early tradition as to the 
occasion and scope of this Gospel, which is most fully related in the com- 
mentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia, to the effect that while St. John lived at 
Ephesus, and visited all parts of Asia, the writings of Matthew, Mark, and 
even Luke, came into the hands of the Christians, and were diligently cir- 
culated everywhere. Then it occurred to the Christians of Asia that St. 
John was a more credible witness than all others, forasmuch as from the 
beginning, even before Matthew, he was with the Lord, and enjoyed more 
abundant grace through the love Avhich the Lord bore to him. And they 
brought him the books, and sought to know his opinion of them. Then he 
praised the writers for their veracity, and said that a few things had been 
omitted by them. And he added that they who discourse of the coming of 
Christ in the flesh ought not to omit to speak of his Divinity, lest in process 
of time men who are used to such discourses might suppose that Christ was 
only what he appeared to be. Thereupon the brethren exhorted him to 
write at once the things which he judged the most important for instruction, 
and which he saw omitted by the others. And he did so. And therefore 
from the beginning he discoursed about the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, 
judging this to be the necessary beginning of the Gospel, and from it he went 
on to the incarnation. 

(4.) Contents and Integrity. — There is no book in the New Testament 
which more strongly than the fourth Gospel impresses the reader with the 
notion of its unity and integrity. And yet it does not appear to be written 
with such close adherence to a preconceived plan as a Western writer would 
show in developing and illustrating some one leading idea. Its contents 
may be arranged in the following order : 

A. The Prologue, i. 1-18. 

B. The History, i. 19-xx. 29. 

(a.) Various events relating to our Lord's ministry, narrated in connection 
with seven journeys, i. 19-xii. 50 : 

1. First journey, into Judasa, and beginning of his ministry, i. 19— ii. 12„ 

2. Second journey, and appearance at the Passover in the first year of his 
ministry, ii. 13-iv. — The manifestation of his glory in Jerusalem, ii. 13-iii. 
21, and in the journey back, iii. 22-iv. 

3. Third journey, in the second year of his ministry, about the Passover, v. 

4. Fourth journey, about the Passover in the third year of hi6 ministry, 
beyond Jordan, vi. — His glory shown by the multiplication of the loaves, and 



Appendix I. Acts of the Apostles. 709 

by his walking on the sea, and by the discourses with the Jews, his disciples 
and his Apostles. 

5. Fifth journey, six months before his death, begun at the Feast of Tab-, 
ernacles, vii.-x. 21. — Circumstances in which the journey was undertaken, 
vii. 1-13 ; five signs of his glory shown at Jerusalem, vii. 14-x. 21. 

6. Sixth journey, about the Feast of Dedication, x. 22-42. — His testimony 
in Solomon's porch, and his departure beyond Jordan. 

7. Seventh journey in Judasa toward Bethany, xi. 1-54. — The raising of 
Lazarus and its consequences. 

8. Eighth joarney, before his hist Passover, xi. 55-xii. — Plots of the Jews, 
his entry into Jerusalem, and into the Temple, and the manifestation of his 
glory there. 

(l>). History of the Death of Christ, xiii.-xx. 29. 

1. Preparation for his Passion, xiii.-xvii. — Last Supper, discourse to his 
disciples, his commendatory prayer." 

2. The circumstances of his Passion and Death, xviii. xix. — His appre- 
hension, trial, and crucifixion. 

3. His Resurrection, and the proofs of it, xx. 1-29. 

C. The Conclusion, xx. 30-xxi. 

1. Scope of the foregoing history, xx. 30, 31. 

2. Confirmation of the authority of the Evangelist by additional historic- 
al facts, and by the testimony supposed to be that of the elders of the 
Church, xxi. 1-24. 

3. Reason of the termination of the history, xxi. 25. 

Some portions of the Gospel have been regarded by certain critics as in- 
terpolations. The 25th verse and the latter half of the 24th of ch. xxi. 
are generally received as an undisguised addition, probably by the elders of 
the Ephesian Church, where the Gospel was first published. 

§ 9. The Acts of the Apostles is described as a second treatise 80 by 
St. Luke. The identity of the writer of both books is strongly shown by 
their great similarity in style and idiom, and the usage of particular words 
and compound forms. It commences with an inscription to the same 
Theophilus to whom St. Luke dedicates his Gospel. 81 But its design must 
not be supposed to be limited to the edification of Theophilus, whose name is 
prefixed only, as was customary then as now, by way of dedication. The read- 
ers were evidently intended to be the members of the Christian Church, wheth- 
er Jews or Gentiles ; for its contents are such as are of the utmost consequence 
to the whole Church. They arc The fulfillment of the promise of the Father 
by the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the results of that outpouring, by the dis- 
persion of the Gospel among Jews and Gentiles. Under these leading heads 
all the personal and subordinate details may be ranged. Immediately aft- 
er the Ascension, St. Peter, the first of the Twelve, designated by our Lord 
as the Rock on whom the Church was to be built, the holder of the keys of 
the kingdom, becomes the prime actor under God in the founding of the 
Church. He is the centre of the first great group of sayings and doings. 
The opening of the door to Jews (ch. ii.) and Gentiles (ch. x.) is his office, 
and by him, in good time, is accomplished. But none of the existing 
twelve Apostles were, humanly speaking, fitted to preach the Gospel to the 
cultivated Gentile world. To be by divine grace the spiritual conqueror of 
80 deujepo? \670f. 81 See p. TOG. 



710 Books of the New Testament Appendix I 

Asia and Europe, God raised up another instrument, from among the high< 
ly-educated and zealous Pharisees. The preparation of Saul of Tarsus foi 
the work to be done, the progress of that work in his hand, his journeyings, 
preachings, and perils, his stripes and imprisonments, his testifying in Je- 
rusalem and being brought to testify in Rome — these are the subjects of the 
latter half of the book, of which the great central figure is the Apostle Paul. 

Any view which attributes to the writer, as his chief design, some col- 
lateral purpose which is served by the book as it stands, or indeed any pur- 
pose beyond that of writing a faithful history of such facts as seemed im- 
portant in the spread of the Gospel, is now generally, and very properly, 
treated as erroneous. Such a view has become celebrated in modern times, 
as held by Baur — that the purpose of the writer was to compare the two 
great Apostles, to show that St. Paul did not depart from the principles 
which regulated St. Peter, and to exalt him at every opportunity by com- 
parison with St. Peter. The reader need hardly be reminded how little 
any such purpose is borne out by the contents of the book itself; nay, how 
naturally they would follow their present sequence, without any such 
thought having been in the writer's mind. Doubtless many ends are an- 
swered and many results brought out by the book as its narrative proceeds : 
as, e. g., the rejection of the Gospel by the Jewish people everywhere, and its 
gradual transference to the Gentiles ; and others which might be easily gath- 
ered up, and made by ingenious hypothesizers, such as Baur, to appear as if 
the writer were bent on each one in its turn, as the chief object of his work. 

As to the time when, and place at which, the book was written, we are 
left to gather them entirely from indirect notices. It seems probable that 
the place of writing was Rome, and the time about two years from the date 
of St. Paul's arrival there, as related in ch. xxviii., sub Jin. Had any con- 
siderable alteration in the Apostle's circumstances taken place before the 
publication, there can be no reason why it should not have been noticed. 
And on other accounts also this time was by far the most likely for the 
publication of the book. The arrival in Rome was an important period in 
the Apostle's life : the quiet which succeeded it seemed to promise no im- 
mediate determination of his cause. A large amount of historic material 
had been collected in Judasa, and during the various missionary journeys ; 
or, taking another and not less probable view, Nero was beginning to un- 
dergo that change for the worse which disgraced the latter portion of his 
reign : none could tell how soon the whole outward repose of Roman society 
might be shaken, and the tacit toleration which the Christians enjoyed be 
exchanged for bitter persecution. If such terrors were imminent, there 
would surely be in the Roman Church prophets and teachers who might tell 
them of the storm which was gathering, and warn them that the records ly- 
ing ready for publication must be given to the faithful before its outbreak 
or event. Such a priori considerations would, it is true, weigh but little 
against presumptive evidence furnished by the book itself; but arrayed, as 
they are, in aid of such evidence, they carry some weight, when we find that 
the time naturally and fairly indicated in the book itself for its publication 
is that one of all others when we should conceive that publication most 
likely. This would give us for thepublication the year 63 a.d., according to 
the most probable assignment of the date of the arrival of St. Paul at Rome. 

The genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles has ever been recognized by the 
Church. The text is very full of various readings ; more so than any oth- 



Appendix I. St. PauVs Epistles. 711 

er book of the New Testament. To this several reasons may have contrib- 
uted. In many backward references to Gospel history, and the many antici- 
pations of statements and expressions occurring in the Epistles, temptations 
abounded for a corrector to try his hand at assimilating, and, as he thought, 
reconciling, the various accounts. In places where ecclesiastical order or 
usage was in question, insertions or omissions were made to suit the habits 
and views of the Church in after-times. Where the narrative simply re- 
lated facts, any act or word apparently unworthy of the Apostolic agent was 
modified for the sake of decorum. Where St. Paul repeats to different au- 
diences, or the writer himself narrates, the details of his miraculous conver- 
sion, the one passage was pieced from the other, so as to produce verbal ac- 
cordance. 

II. THE FOURTEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 

§ 10. The Epistles of St. Paul have claimed so much of our attention 
in connection with the Apostle's life, that nothing remains to be added here 
except in one or two cases. The order assigned to them in the Canon, 
which is not that of their chronological sequence, seems to have been deter- 
mined partly by their magnitude and partly by their contents. Somewhat 
as with the division of the Hebrew prophets into Greater and Lesser, the 
Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians seem to be placed first as being the long- 
est, and they may also take precedence as containing full discussions of 
great points of Christian faith and practice." 2 Of the shorter Epistles, 
Galatians has a close doctrinal connection with Romans; 63 Ephesians, Phi- 
lippians, and Colossians are too much alike not to have been placed togeth- 
er, though their order is transposed; 84 and 1 and 2 Thessalonians, the first 
written, seem to be placed last because of their allusions to the last times. 
The four personal Epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, are placed 
together, at the expense of severing the connection of Philemon with Colos- 
sians. The position of Hebrews last of all, and separated from the other 
Epistles to Churches, indicates the doubt of its Pauline authorship. 

1. Epistle to the Romans. See c. xvii. §§ II, 15. 

2. First Epistle to the Corinthians. See c. xvii. §§ 7-9. 

3. Second Epistle to the Corinthians. See c. xvii. §§ 12, 13. 

4. Epistle to the Galatians. See c. xvii. § 2. 

5. Epistle to the Ephesians. See c. xviii. § 18. 

6. Epistle to the Philippians. See c. xviii. § 19. 

7. Epistle to the Colossians. See c. xviii. § 16. 

8. First Epistle to the Thessalonlansp See c. xvi. §§ 7, 13. 

9. Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. See c. xvi. §§ 7, 13 

10. First Epistle to Timothy. 85 See c. xix. §§ 4-6. 

11. Second Epistle to Timotht. See c. xix. §§ 7, 10. 

12. Epistle to Titus. See c. xix. § 7. 

13. Epistle to Philemon. See c. xviii. § 17. 

14. Epistle to the Hebrews. — (1.) Canonical authority. — The imme- 
diate successors of the Apostles seem to have regarded this Epistle as of 
canonical authority ; but from the middle of the second to the middle of 

82 Another reason for the order may per- 84 It should he, as we have seen, Colossians, 
haps he found in the importance of the E/>hesians, Philijjpians. 

churches of Rome and Corinth. 85 The arguments on the Pauline author- 

83 It is probably on account of its argu- ship of the Pastoral Epistles are stated at 
mentative character that Hebrews stands length in the Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii, 
next to Galatians in some ancient copies. p. 1507 seq. 



712 Books of the New Testament. Appendix I. 

the fourth century it was generally rejected by the Fathers of the Roman 
and North African churches. At the latter end of the fourth century, Je- 
rome, the most learned and critical of the Latin Fathers, reviewed the con- 
flicting opinions as to the authority of this Epistle. He considered that 
the prevailing though not universal view of the Latin churches was of less 
weight than the view not only of ancient writers, but also of all the Greek 
and all the Eastern churches, where the Epistle was received as canonical 
and read daily ; and he pronounced a decided opinion in favor of its au- 
thority. The great contemporary light of North Africa, St. Augustine, 
held a similar opinion. The third Council of Carthage, a.d. 397, and 8 
Decretal of Pope Innocent, a.d. 416, gave a final confirmation to the deci- 
sion of the Eastern churches in its favor. The doubts were confined to the 
Latin churches from the middle of the second to the close of the fourth 
century. All the rest of orthodox Christendom from the beginning was 
agreed upon the canonical authority of this Epistle. 

(2.) Authorship. — The superscription, the ordinary source of information, 
is wanting ; but there is no reason to doubt that at first, everywhere except 
in North Africa, St. Paul was regarded as the author. Clement of Alex- 
andria ascribed to St. Luke the translation of the Epistle into Greek from a 
Hebrew original of St. Paul. Origen believed that the thoughts were St. 
Paul's, the language and composition St. Luke's or Clement's of Rome. 
Tertullian names Barnabas as the reputed author according to the North 
African tradition. The view of the Alexandrian Fathers, a middle point 
between the Eastern and Western traditions, won its way in the Church. 
Luther's conjecture that Apollos was the author has been widely adopted. 
If it be asked to what extent, and by whom St. Paul was assisted in the 
composition of this Epistle, the reply must be in the words of Origen, 
"Who wrote [i. e., as in Rom. xvi. 22, wrote from the author's dictation] 
this Epistle, only God knows." The similarity in phraseology which ex- 
ists between the acknowledged writings of St. Luke and this Epistle, his 
constant companionship with St. Paul, and his habit of listening to and re- 
cording the Apostle's arguments, form a strong presumption in his favor. 

(3.) The question to whom the Epistle was sent was agitated as early aa 
the time of Chrysostom, who replies, — to the Jews in Jerusalem and Pales- 
tine. The argument of the Epistle is such as could be used with most 
effect to a church consisting exclusively of Jews by birth, personally fa- 
miliar with and attached to the Temple-service. Other arguments have 
been already stated. 80 Some critics have maintained that this Epistle was 
addressed directly to Jewish believers everywhere ; others have restricted 
it to those who dwelt in Asia and Greece. 

(4.) Time and place. — Eastern traditions of the fourth century, in connec- 
tion with the opinion that St. Paul is the writer, name Italy and Rome, or 
Athens, as the place from whence the Epistle was written. Either place 
would agree with, perhaps was suggested by, the mention of Timothy in 
the last chapter. The Epistle was evidently written before the destruction 
of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. The whole argument, and specially the passages 
viii. 4 seq., ix. 6 seq., and xiii. 10 seq., imply that the Temple was stand- 
ing, and that its usual course of Divine service was carried on without 
interruption. The date which best agrees with the traditionary account of 
the authorship and destination of the Epistle is a.d. 63, about the end of 
* 6 Chap. xix. § 20. 



Appendix I. ' Epistle to the Hebrews. 713 

St. Paul's imprisonment at Rome, and soon after Albinus succeeded Festur. 
as Procurator. 

(5.) Language in which it was written. — Like St. Matthew's Gospel, the 
Epistle to the Hebrews has afforded ground for much controversy respect- 
ing the language in which it was originally written. The earliest state- 
ment is that of Clement of Alexandria, to the effect that it was written by 
St. Paul in Hebrew, and translated by St. Luke into Greek. But nothing 
is said to lead us to regard it as a tradition, rather than a conjecture sug- 
gested by the style of the Epistle. If the Epistle was written to the church- 
es of Judaea, it would natually be in Hebrew, that is, the vernacular Arama- 
ic. The arguments in support of a Greek original rest on the grounds of 
(i.) the purity and easy flow of the Greek ; (ii.) the use of Greek words 
which could not be adequately expressed in Hebrew without long peri- 
phrase; (iii.) the use of paronomasia ; and (iv.) the use of the Septuagint 
in quotations and references. All these would be consistent with the theo- 
ry of a double original. 

(6.) Condition of the Hebrews, and Scope of the Epistle. — The numerous 
Christian churches scattered throughout Judaea 8? were continually exposed 
to persecution from the Jews f 8 but in Jerusalem there was one additional 
weapon in the hands of the predominant oppressors of the Christians. 
The magnificent national Temple might be shut against the Hebrew 
Christian ; and even if this affliction were not often laid upon him, yet 
there was a secret burden which he bore within him, the knowledge that 
the end of all the beauty and awfulness of Zion was rapidly approaching. 
What could take the place of the Temple, and that which was behind the 
veil, and the Levitical sacrifices, and the Holy City, when they should 
cease to exist? What compensation could Christianity offer him for the 
loss which was pressing the Hebrew Christian more and more ? The 
writer of this Epistle meets the Hebrew Christians on their own ground. 
His answer is — "Your new faith gives you Christ, and in Christ all you 
seek, all your fathers sought. In Christ the Son of God you have an all- 
sufficient Mediator, nearer than angels to the Father, eminent above Moses 
as a benefactor, more sympathizing and more prevailing than the high- 
priest as an intercessor : his sabbath awaits you in heaven : to his covenant 
the old was intended to be subservient ; his atonement is the eternal reality 
of which sacrifices are but the passing shadow : his city heavenly, not made 
with hands. Having him, believe in him with all your heart, with a faith 
in the unseen future, strong as that of the saints of old, patient under pres- 
ent, and prepared for coming woe, full of energy, and hope, and holiness, 
and love." Such was the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

III. THE SEVEN CATHOLIC OR GENERAL EPISTLES. 

§ 11. Epistle of James. — (1.) Its Genuineness and Canonicity. — In the 
third book of his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius places the Epistle of St. 
James, the Second and Third Epistle of St. John, and the Epistle of St. 
Jude among the Antilegomena or disputed books of the New Testament. 
Elsewhere he refers the Epistle to the class of " spurious." It is found in 
the Syriac version, and appears to be referred to by Clement of Rome, 

« Acts ix. 31 ; GaL i. 22. sa i Thess. ii. 14. 



714 Books of the New Testament. ■ Appendix 1. 

Hermas, and Irenseus, and is quoted by almost all the Fathers of the fourth 
century. In 397 the Council of Carthage accepted it as canonical, and from 
that time there has been no further question of its genuineness on the score 
of external testimony. But at the time of the Reformation the question of 
its authenticity was again raised, and now upon the ground of internal evi- 
dence ; the chief objection being a supposed opposition between St. Paul and 
St. James, on the doctrine of Justification, inconsiderately urged by Luther. 

(2.) Its Author. — The author of the Epistle must be either James the 
son of Zebedee, according to the subscription of the Syriac version ; or 
James the son of Alphaeus ; or James the brother of the Lord, which is the 
general opinion ; or an unknown James. Internal evidence points unmis- 
takably to James the Just as the writer, and we have already identified 
James the Just with the son of Alphaeus. 89 It was written from Jerusalem, 
which St. James does not seem to have ever left. The time at which he 
wrote it has been fixed as late as a.d. 62, and as early as a.d. 45. Those 
who see in its writer a desire to counteract the effects of a misconstruction 
of St. Paul's doctrine of Justification by Fait!), in ii. 14-26, and those who 
see a reference to the immediate destruction of Jerusalem in v. 1, and an 
allusion to the name Christians in ii. 7, argue in favor of the later date. 
The earlier is advocated chiefly on the ground that the Epistle could not 
have been written by St. James after the Council in Jerusalem, without 
allusion to what was there decided, and because the Gentile Christian does 
not yet appear to be recognized. 

(3.) Its object. — The main object of the Epistle is not to teach doctrine, 
but to improve morality. St. James is the moral teacher of the New 
Testament. There are two ways of explaining this characteristic of the 
Epistle. Some commentators and writers see in St. James a man who had 
not realized the essential principles and peculiarities of Christianity, but 
was in a transition state, half Jew and half Christian. But there is another 
and much more natural way of accounting for the fact. St. James was 
writing for a special class of persons, and knew what that class especially 
needed. Those for whom he wrote were the Jewish Christians, whether 
in Jerusalem or abroad. The two objects of the Epistle are — 1. to warn 
against the sins to which as Jews they were most liable ; 2. to console and ex- 
hort them under the sufferings to which as Christians they were most exposed. 

The Jewish vices against which he warns them are — Formalism, which 
made the service of God consist in washings and outward ceremonies, 
whereas he reminds them (i. 27) that it consists rather in Active Love and 
Purity ; Fanaticism, which under the cloak of religious zeal was tearing 
Jerusalem to pieces (i. 20) ; Fatalism, which threw its sins on God (i. 13) ; 
Meanness, which crouched before the rich (ii. 2) ; Falsehood, which had 
made words and oaths playthings (iii. 2-12) ; Partisanship (iii. 14) ; Evil- 
speaking (iv. 11) ; Boasting (iv. 16) ; Oppression (v. 4). The great lesson 
which he teaches them as Christians is Patience — Patience in trial (i. 2) ; 
Patience in good works (i. 22-25) ; Patience under provocations (iii. 17) ; 
Patience under oppression (v. 7) ; Patience under persecution (v. 10) ; and 
the ground of their Patience is, that the Coming of the Lord draweth nigh, 
which is to right all wrongs (v. 8). Respecting the doctrinal teaching of 
ch. ii., we must be content to refer to Professor Lightfoot's masterly 

80 See ch. ix. Notes and Illustrations (A), The Brethren of our Lose 



Appendix I. The General Epistles. 715 

proof that St. James is arguing from one point of view, as St. Paul argues 
from another, against the Jewish errors on Justification (Commentary on 
the Galatians, notes "On the Words denoting Faith," and "On the Faith 
of Abraham"). 

§ 12. Fikst Epistle of Peter. — The external evidence of authenticity 
is of the strongest kind. Eeferred to in the Second Epistle (iii. 1) ; 
known to Polycarp and frequently alluded to in his Epistle to the Philippic 
ans ; recognized by Papias ; 90 repeatedly quoted by Irenasus, Clement of 
Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen ; it was accepted without hesitation by 
the universal Church. As to its character and contents, see c. xix. §§ 16-18. 

The Second Epistle of Peter presents questions of far greater difficul- 
ty than the former. We have few references, and none of a very positive 
character, in the writings of the early Fathers ; the style differs materially 
from that of the First Epistle, and the resemblance, amounting to a studied 
imitation, between this Epistle and that of Jude, seems scarcely reconcil- 
able with the position of Peter. Doubts as to its genuineness were enter- 
tained by the greatest critics of the early Church : in the time of Eusebius 
it was reckoned among the disputed books, and was not formally admitted 
into the Canon until the year 393, at the Council of Hippo. In reply to 
these objections, we may remark : — 1. With regard to its recognition by 
the early Church, we observe that it was not likely to be quoted frequently; 
it was addressed to a portion of the Church not at that time much in inter- 
course with the rest of Christendom : the documents of the primitive 
Church are far too scanty to give weight to the argument from omission. 
Although it can not be proved to have been referred to by any author earlier 
than Origen, yet passages from Clement of Rome, Hermas, Justin Martyr, 
Theophilus of Antioch and Irenseus, suggest an acquaintance with this 
Epistle. It is also distinctly stated by Eusebius and by Photius that Clem- 
ent of Alexandria wrote a commentary on all the disputed Epistles, 
in which this was certainly included. Didymus refers to it very frequent- 
ly in his great work on the Trinity. It was certainly included in the col- 
lection of Catholic Epistles known to Eusebius and Origen. The historical 
evidence is certainly inconclusive, but not such as to require or to warrant 
the rejection of the Epistle. The silence of the Fathers is accounted for 
more easily than its admission into the Canon after the question as to its 
genuineness had been raised. 

2. The difference of style may be admitted. The only question is, 
whether it is greater than can be satisfactorily accounted for, supposing that 
the Apostle employed a different person as his amanuensis. If we admit 
that some time intervened between the composition of the two works, that 
in writing the first the Apostle was aided by Silvanus, and in the second by 
another, perhaps by Mark, that the circumstances of the churches addressed 
by him were considerably changed, and that the second was written in 
greater haste, the differences may be regarded as insufficient to justify more 
than hesitation in admitting its genuineness. The resemblance to the 
Epistle of Jude may be admitted without affecting our judgment unfavorably. 

3. The doubts as to its genuineness appear to have originated with th** 
critics of Alexandria, where, however, the Epistle itself was formally reco; 
nized at a very early period. 

90 Ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. 39. 



716 Books of the New Testament Appendix I 

§ 13. The Epistles of St. John — First Epistle. — The external evi- 
dence of its authenticity is of the most satisfactory nature. It was ac« 
knowledged and received as the production of the Apostle John by all the 
early Fathers ; and there is no voice in antiquity raised to the contrary. 
The internal evidence for its being the work of St. John, from its similarity 
in style, language and doctrine to the Gospel, is overwhelming. Mac- 
knight 91 has drawn out a list of nineteen passages in the Epistle which are 
so similar to an equal number of passages in the Gospel that we can not 
but conclude that the two writings emanated from the same mind, or that 
one author was a strangely successful copyist both of the words and of the 
sentiments of the other. The allusion again of the writer to himself is such 
as would suit St. John the Apostle, and very few but St. John (1 Ep. i. 1). 

With regard to the time at which St. John wrote the Epistle, there is 
considerable diversity of opinion. Many fix a date previous to the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, understanding (but probably not correctly) the expression 
"It is the last time" (ii. 18) to refer to the Jewish Church and nation. 
Others, with more probability, assign it to the close of the first century. 
There are several indications of the Epistle being posterior to the Gospel. 
Like the Gospel it was probably written from Ephesus. It was primarily 
meant for the Churches of Asia under St. John's inspection, to whom he 
had already orally delivered his doctrine (i. 3, ii. 7). 

The main object of the Epistle does not appear to be that of opposing er- 
rors, as many have supposed. The leading purpose of the Apostle appears 
to be rather constructive that polemical. St. John is remarkable both in 
his history and in his writings for his abhorrence of false doctrine, but he 
does not attack error as a controversialist. He states the deep truth and lays 
down the deep moral teaching of Christianity, and in this way, rather than 
directly, condemns heresy. In the introduction (i. 1-4) the Apostle states 
the purport of his Epistle". It is to declare the Word of life to those whom 
he is addressing, in order that he and they might be united in true com- 
munion with each other, and with God the Father, and his Son Jesus 
Christ. He at once begins to explain the nature and conditions of commun- 
ion with God, and being led on from this point into other topics, he twice 
brings himself back to the same subject. The first part of the Epistle may 
be considered to end at ii. 28. The Apostle begins afresh with the doctrine 
of sonship or communion at ii. 29, and returns to the same theme at iv. 7. 
His lesson throughout is, that the means of union with God are, on the part 
of Christ, his atoning blood (i. 7, ii. 2, iii. 5, iv. 10, 14, v. 6) and advocacy (ii. 
])— on the part of man, holiness (i. 6), obedience (ii. 3), purity (iii. 3), faith 
(iii. 23, iv. 3, v. 5), and above all love (ii. 7, iii. 14, iv. 7, v. 1). St. John 
is designated the Apostle of Love, and rightly ; but it should be ever remem- 
bered that his " Love " does not exclude or ignore, but embraces, both faith 
and obedience as constituent parts of itself. Indeed, St. Paul's "Faith 
that worketh by Love," and St. James's " Works that are the fruit of Faith," 
and St. John's "Love which springs from Faith and produces Obedience," 
are all one and the same state of mind, described according to the first, 
third, or second stage into which we are able to analyze the complex whole. 

There are two doubtful passages in this Epistle, ii. 23, "but he that ac- 
knowledged the Son hath the Father also," and v. 7, "For there are threo 

9* Preface to the First Eiristle of John. 






Appendix I. The General Epistles. Ill 

that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and 
these three are one." It would appear without doubt that they are not genuine. 

Second and Third Epistles. — The evidence of antiquity in favor of 
their authenticity is not complete, but yet it is considerable. If the external 
testimony is not as decisive as we might wish, the internal evidence is pe- 
culiarly strong. It has been pointed out that of the thirteen verses which 
compose the Second Epistle, eight are to be found in the First Epistle. 
Either, then, the Second Epistle proceeded from the same author as the 
First, or from a conscious fabricator who desired to pass off something of 
his own as the production of St. John. But if the latter alternative had 
been true, the fabricator in question would assuredly have assumed the 
title of John the Apostle, instead of merely designating himself as The Elder, 
and he would have introduced some doctrine which it would have been his 
object to make popular. The title and contents of the Epistle are strong 
arguments against a fabricator, whereas they would account for its non-uni- 
versal reception in early times. And if not the work of a fabricator, it must, 
from style, diction, and tone of thought, be the work of the author of the 
First Epistle and, we may add, of the Gospel. 

The reason why St. John designates himself as "Elder'' rather than 
"Apostle" (2 Ep. 1, 3 Ep. 1), is no doubt the same as that which made St. 
Peter designate himself by the same title, 92 and which caused St. James 
and St. Jude to give themselves no other title than " the servant of God and 
of the Lord Jesus Christ," 93 "the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of 
James.'' 94 St. Paul had a special object in declaring himself an Apostle. 
Those who belonged to the original Twelve had no such necessity imposed 
upon them. With them it was a matter of indifference whether they em- 
ployed the name of Apostle, like St. Peter, 95 or adopted an appellation which 
they shared with others, like St. John and St. James and St. Jude. 

The Second Epistle is addressed ek/xk'tj nvpia. An individual woman, 
who had children and a sister and nieces, is clearly indicated. Whether 
her name is given, and if so, what it is, has been doubted. According to 
one interpretation she is "the Lady Electa,'' to another, "the elect Kyria," 
to a third, " the elect Lady." The third is the rendering of the English 
version, which is "probably the most correct. 

The Third Epistle is addressed to Gaius or Caius. He was probably a 
convert of St. John (iii. 4), and a layman of wealth and distinction (3 Ep. 5) in 
some city near Ephesus. 

The object of St. John in writing the Second Epistle was to warn the lady 
to whom he wrote against abetting the teaching known as that of Basilides 
and his followers, by an undue kindness perhaps displayed by her toward 
the preachers of the false doctrine. After the introductory salutation, the 
Apostle at once urges on his correspondent the great principle of Love, 
which with him (as we have before seen) means right affection springing 
from right faith and issuing in right conduct. The immediate consequence 
of the possession of this Love is the abhorrence of heretical misbelief, be- 
cause the latter, being incompatible with right faith, is destructive of the 
producing cause of Love, and therefore of Love itself. This is the secret 
of St. John's strong denunciation of the "deceiver" whom he. designates 
as " Antichrist." Love is with him the essence of Christianity ; but Love 

9 » 1 Pet. v. 1. »a James i. 1. ^ Jude 1 « 1 Pet. i, 1. 2 Pet. i. 1. 



718 



Books of the New Testament. 



ArPENDIX I 







can spring only from right faith. Wrong belief therefore destroys Love, 
and with it Christianity. Therefore, says he, ' ' If there come any unto you 
and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him 
God speed, for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds " 
(2 Ep. 10, 11). 

The Third Epistle was written for the purpose of commending to the 
kindness and hospitality of Gaius some Christians who were strangers in the 
place where he lived. It is probable that these Christians carried this 
letter with them to Gaius as their introduction. It would appear that the 
object of the travelers was to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles without 
money and Avithout price (3 Ep. 7). St. John had already written to the 
ecclesiastical authorities of the place; but they, at the instigation of Diotre- 
phes, had refused to receive the missionary brethren, whom therefore the 
Apostle now commends to the care of a layman. It is probable that Diotre- 
phes was a leading presbyter who held Judaizing views, and would not give 
assistance to men who were going about with the purpose of preaching sole 
ly to the Gentiles. Whether Demetrius (ver. 12) was a tolerant presbyter 
of the same community, whose example St. John holds up as worthy of 
commendation in contradistinction to that of Diotrephes, or whether he was 
one of the strangers who bore the letter, we are now unable to determine. 
The latter supposition is the more probable. 

We may conjecture that the two Epistles were written shortly after the 
First Epistle, from Ephesus. They both apply to individual cases of conduct 
the principles which had been laid down in their fullness in the First Epistle. 

The title Catholic does not properly belong to the Second and Third 
Epistles. It became attached to them, although addressed to individuals, 
because they were of too little importance to be classed by themselves, and, 
so far as doctrine went, were regarded as appendices to the First Epistle. 

§ 14. The Epistle of Jtjde. — The writer of this Epistle styles himself, 
ver. 1, " Jude the brother of James," and has been usually identified with 
the Apostle Judas Lebbasus or Thaddaeus. 96 But there are strong reasons 
for rendering the words "Judas the son of James:" and inasmuch as the 
author appears (ver. 17) to distinguish himself from the Apostles, we may 
agree with eminent critics in attributing the Epistle to another author. The 
most probable conclusion is that the author was Jude, one of the brethren of 
Jesus, and brother of James, not the Apostle the son of Alphaeus, but the 
bishop of Jerusalem. 

As to the time and place at which it was written, all is conjecture. The 
author being not absolutely certain, there are no external grounds for de- 
ciding the point; and the internal evidence is but small. 

Although the Epistle of Jude is one of the so-called Antilegomena, and 
its canonicity was questioned in the earliest ages of the Church, there never 
was any doubt of its genuineness among those by whom it was known. The 
question was never whether it was the work of an impostor, but whether its 
author was of sufficient weight to warrant its admission into the Canon. 
This question was gradually decided in its favor. 

The object of the Epistle is plainly enough announced, ver. 3 : the rea- 
son for this exhortation is given ver. 4. The remainder of the Epistle is 
almost entirely occupied by a minute depiction of the adversaries of the 

» c Luke vi. 1G. 



Appendix i. Revelation. 719 

faith. The Epistle closes by briefly reminding the readers of the oft-repeat- 
ed prediction of the Apostles — among whom the Avriter seems not to rank 
himself — that the faith would be assailed by such enemies as he has depicted 
(ver. 17-19), exhorting them to maintain their own steadfastness in the faith 
(ver. 20, 21), while they earnestly sought to rescue others from the correct ex- 
ample of those licentious livers (ver. 22, 23), and commending them to the 
power of God in language which forcibly recalls the closing benediction of 
the Epistle to the Romans (ver. 24, 25). 97 This Epistle presents one pe- 
culiarity, which, as we learn from St. Jerome, caused its authority to be im- 
pugned in very early times — the supposed citation of apocryphal writings 
(ver. 9, 14, 15). The former of these passages, containing the reference to 
the contest of the archangel Michael and the devil "about the body of 
Moses," was supposed by Origen to have been founded on a Jewish work 
called the "Assumption of Moses." As regards the supposed quotation 
from the Book of Enoch, the question is not so clear whether St. Jude is 
making a citation from a work already in the hands of his readers, or is 
employing a traditionary prophecy not at that time committed to writing. 

It has been already mentioned that the larger portion of this Epistle (ver. 
3-16) is almost identical in language and subject with a part of the Second 
Epistle of Peter. 98 

IV. THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 

§ 15. The word Revelation is the translation of the Greek title of tho 
book Apocalypsis QAvcoKaAvtyiQ), that is, " uncovering" or " unveiling." 

(1.) Canonical Authority and Author ship. — The question as to the canon- 
ical authority of the Revelation resolves itself into a question of authorship. 
If it can be proved that a book, claiming so distinctly as this does the au- 
thority of divine inspiration, Avas actually written by St. John the Apostle, 
then no doubt will be entertained as to its title to a place in the Canon of 
Scripture. The. evidence in favor of St. John's authorship consists of (i.) 
the assertions of the author, and (ii.) historical tradition. 

(i.) The author's description of himself in the 1st and 22d chapters is 
certainly equivalent to an assertion that he is the Apostle, (a) He names 
himself simply John, without prefix or addition — a name which at that 
period, and in Asia, must have been taken by every Christian as the des- 
ignation, in the first instance, of the great Apostle who dwelt at Ephesus. 
He is also described as (b) a servant of Christ, (c) one who had borne testi- 
mony as an eye-witness of the Word of God and of the testimony of Christ 
— terms which were surely designed to identify him with the writer of the 
verses John xix. 35, i. 14, and 1 John i. 2. He is (d) in Patmos for the 
Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ : it may be easy to suppose 
that other Christians of the same name were banished thither, but the Apos- 
tle is the only John who is distinctly named in early history as an exile at 
Patmos. He is also (e) a fellow-sufferer with those whom he addresses, and 
(/) the authorized channel of the most direct and important communication 
that was ever made to the Seven Churches of Asia, of which churches John 
the Apostle was at that time the spiritual governor and teacher. Lastly, 
(<y) the writer was a fellow-servant of angels and a brother of prophets — 

91 Cf. Rom. xvi. V5-2T. 9 § 2 Pet, ii. 1-19. 



720 



Boohs of the Neio Testament. 



Appendix I. 






titles which are fa<* «aore suitable to one of the chief Apostles, and far more 
likely to have been assigned to him, than to any other man of less distinc- 
tion. All these marks are found united together in the Apostle John, and 
in him alone of all historical persons. We must go out of the region of fact 
into the region of conjecture to find such another person. A candid reader 
of the Revelation, if previously acquainted with St. John's other writings 
and life, must inevitably conclude that the writer intended to be identified 
with St. John. Unless we are prepared to give up the veracity and divine 
origin of the whole book, and to treat the writer's account of himself as a 
mere fiction of a poet trying to cover his own insignificance with an honored 
name, we must accept that description as a plain statement of fact, equally 
credible with the rest of the book, and in harmony with the simple, honest, 
truthful character which is stamped on the face of the whole narrative. 
Besides this direct assertion of St. John's authorship, there is also an impli- 
cation of it running through the book. Generally, the instinct of single- 
minded, patient, faithful students has led them to recognize not merely the 
same Spirit as the source of this and other books of Holy Scripture, but also 
the same peculiarly-formed human instrument employed both in producing 
this book and the fourth Gospel, and in speaking the characteristic words 
and performing the characteristic actions recorded of St. John. 

(ii.) The historical testimonies in favor of St. John's authorship begin 
with Justin Martyr (a.d. 150) ; but Jerome states that the Greek Churches 
felt, with respect to the Revelation, a similar doubt to that of the Latins re- 
specting the Epistle to the Hebrews. 09 

(2.) Tiine and Place of Writing. — The date of the Revelation is given by 
the great majority of critics as a.d. 95-97. The weighty testimony of Ire- 
nffiusis almost sufficient to prevent any other conclusion. He says: "It 
(i. c, the Revelation) was seen no very Jong time ago, but almost in our 
own generation, at the close of Domitian's reign. Eusebius -also records 
that, in the persecution under Domitian, John the Apostle and Evangelist 
w r as banished to the island of Patmos for his testimony of the divine Word. 
There is no mention in any writer of the first three centuries of any other 
time or place. Unsupported by any historical evidence, some commentators 
have put forth the conjecture that the Revelation was written as early as the 
time of Nero. This is simply their inference from the st} r le and contents 
of the book, and is connected with a theory of the early fulfillment of its 
chief prophecies. It has been inferred from i. 2, 9, 10, that the Revelation 
was written in Ephesus, immediately after the Apostle's return from Patmos. 
But the style in which the messages to the Seven Churches are delivered 
rather suggests the notion that the book was written in Patmos. 

(3.) Contents. — The first three verses contain the title of the book, the 
description of the writer, and the blessing pronounced on the readers, which 
possibly, like the last two verses of the fourth Gospel, may be an addition 
by the hand of inspired survivors of the writer. John begins (i. 4) with s 
salutation to the Seven Churches of Asia. This, coming before the an- 
nouncement that he was in the Spirit, looks like a dedication not merely 
of the first vision, but of all the book, to those churches. In the next five 
verses (i. 5-9) he touches the key-note of the whole following book, the 
great fundamental ideas on which all our notions of the government of the 



99 The authorities ou the subject are given in the Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii. p. lOOfi 



Appendix I. Mevelation. 721 

world and the Church are built; the Person of Christ, the redemption 
wrought by him, his second coming to judge mankind, the painful, hopeful 
discipline of Christians in the midst of this present world : thoughts which 
may well be supposed to have been uppermost in the mind of the persecuted 
and exiled Apostle even before the Divine Inspiration came on him. 

(«.) The first vision shows the Son of Man with His injunction, or Epistles, 
to the Seven Churches. While the Apostle is pondering those great truths 
and the critical condition of the churches which he had left, a Divine Per- 
son, resembling those seen by Ezekiel and Daniel, and identified by name 
and by description as Jesus, appears to John, and, with the discriminating 
authority of a Lord and Judge, reviews the state of those churches, pro- 
nounces his decision upon theii several characters, and takes occasion from 
them to speak to all Christians who may deserve similar encouragement or 
similar condemnation. Each of these sentences, spoken by the Son of 
Man, is described as said by the Spirit. Hitherto the Apostle has been 
speaking primarily, though not exclusively, to some of his own contem- 
poraries concerning the present events and circumstances. Hencefcrth he 
ceases to address them particularly. His words are for the ear of the uni- 
versal Church in all ages, and show the significance of things which are pres- 
ent in hope or fear, in sorrow or in joy, to Christians everywhere (i. 7-iii. 22). 

(h.) In the next vision, Patmos and the Divine Person whom he saw are 
gone. . Only the trumpet voice is heard again calling the seer to a change 
of place. He is in the highest court of heaven, and sees God sitting on 
his throne. The seven-sealed book or roll is produced, and the slain 
Lamb, the Redeemer, receives it amid the sound of universal adoration. 
As the seals are opened in order, the Apostle sees (1) a conqueror on a 
white horse, (2) a red horse betokening war, (3) the black horse of famine, 
(4) the pale horse of death, (5) the eager souls of martyrs under the altar, 
(6) an earthquake with universal commotion and terror. After this there 
is a pause, the course of avenging angels is checked, while 144,000, the 
children of Israel, servants of God, are sealed, and an innumerable multi- 
tude of the redeemed of all nations are seen worshiping God. Next (7) 
the seventh seal is opened, and half an hour's silence in heaven ensues 
(v. 1-viii. 1). 

(c) Then seven angels appear witli trumpets, the prayers of saints are 
offered up, the earth is struck with fire from the altar, and the seven trump- 
ets are sounded. (1) The earth and (2) the sea and (3) the springs of 
water and (4) the heavenly bodies are successively smitten, (5) a plague of 
locusts afflicts the men who are not sealed (the first woe), (6) the third part 
of men are slain (the second woe), but the rest are impenitent. Then 
there is a pause ; a mighty angel with a book appears and cries out, seven 
thunders sound, but their words are not recorded, the approaching comple- 
tion of the mystery of God is announced, the angel bids the Apostle eat the 
book, and measure the temple, with its worshipers, and the outer court 
given up to the Gentiles; the two witnesses of God, their martyrdom, resur- 
rection, ascension, are foretold. The approach of the third woe is an- 
nounced and (7) the seventh trumpet is sounded, the reign of Christ is pro- 
claimed, God has taken his gi*eat power, the time has come for judgment 
and for the destruction of the destroyers of the earth (viii. 2-xi. 19). 

The three preceding visions are distinct from one another. Each of the 
iast two, like the longer one which follows, has the appearance of a distinct 
Ff 






722 Books of the IS'ew Testament Appenwx 1 

prophecy, reaching from the prophet's time to the end of the world. The 
second half of the Eevelation (xii.-xxii.) comprises a series of visions which 
are connected by various links. It may be described generally as a proph- 
ecy of the assaults of the devil (the dragon) and his agents (the ten-horned 
beast, the two-horned beast or false prophet, and the harlot) upon the 
Church, and their final destruction. It appears to begin with a reference 
to events anterior, not only to those which are predicted in the preceding 
chapter, but also to the time in which it was written. It seems hard to inter- 
pret the birth of the child as a prediction, and not as a retrospective allusion. 

(d.*) A woman clothed witli the sun is seen in heaven, and a great red 
dragon, with seven crowned heads, stands waiting to devour her offspring; 
her child is caught up unto God, and the mother flees into the wilderness 
for 1260 days. The persecution of the woman and her seed is described as 
the consequence of a war in heaven, in which the dragon was overcome and 
cast out upon the earth (xii.). 

St. John, standing on the sea-shore, sees a beast with seven heads, one 
wounded, with ten crowned horns, rising from the water, as the representa- 
tive of the dragon. All the world wondei' at and worship him, and he at- 
tacks the saints and prevails. He is followed by another two-horned beast 
rising out of the earth, who compels men to wear the mark of the beast, 
whose number is 666 (xiii.). 

St. John sees the Lamb, with the 144,000 who are standing on Mount 
Zion and learning the song of praise of the heavenly host. Three angels 
fly forth calling men to worship God, proclaiming the fall of Babylon, and 
denouncing the worshipers of the beast. A blessing is pronounced on the 
faithful dead, and the judgment of the world is described under the image 
of a harvest reaped by angels (xiw). 

St. John sees in heaven the saints who had overcome the beast, singing 
the song of Moses and the Lamb. Then seven angels come out of the 
heavenly temple, having seven vials of wrath, which they pour out upon the 
earth, sea, rivers, sun, the seat of the beast, Euphrates, and the air, after 
which there is a great earthquake and a hail-storm (xv., xvi.). 

One of the last seven angels carries St. John into the wilderness, and 
shows him a harlot, Babylon, sitting on a scarlet beast with seven heads 
and ten horns. She is explained to be that great city, sitting upon seven 
mountains, reigning over the kings of the earth. Afterward St. John sees 
a vision of the destruction of Babylon, portrayed as the burning of a great 
city, amid the lamentations of worldly men and the rejoicings of saints (xvii., 
xviii.). 

Afterward the worshipers in heaven are heard celebrating Babylon's 
fall and the approaching marriage-supper of the Lamb. The Word of God 
is seen going forth to Avar at the head of the heavenly armies: the beast 
and his false prophet are taken and cast into the burning lake, and their 
worshipers are slain (xix.). 

An angel binds the dragon, i. e., the devil, for 1000 years, while the mar* 
tyred saints who have not worshiped the beast reign with Christ. Then 
the devil is unloosed, gathers a host against the camp of the saints, but is 
overcome by fire from heaven, and is cast into the burning lake, with the 
beast and false prophet. St. John then witnesses the process of the final 
judgment, and sees and describes the new heaven and the new earth, and 
the uew Jerusalem, with its people and their way of life (xx.-xxii. &% 



I 



Appendix I. Revelation. 723 

Tn the last sixteen verses the angel solemnly asseverates the truthfulness 
end importance of the foregoing sayings, pronounces a blessing on those 
^•ho keep them exactly, gives warning of his speedy coming to judgment, 
and of the nearness of the time when these prophecies shall he fulfilled 
(xxii. 6-21). 

(5.) Interpretation. — A short account of the different directions in which 
attempts have been made to interpret the Revelation, is all that can be 
given in this place. The special blessing promised to the reader of this 
book (i. 3), the assistance to common Christian experience afforded by ito 
precepts and by some of its visions, the striking imagery of others, the 
tempting field which it supplies for intellectual exercise, will always attract 
students to this book and secure for it the labors of many commentators. 

The interval between the Apostolic age and that of Constantine has 
been called the Chiliastic period of Apocalyptic interpretation, The visions 
of St. John were chiefly regarded as representations of general Christian 
truths, scarcely yet embodied in actual facts, for the most part to be exem- 
plified or fulfilled in the reign of Antichrist, the coming of Christ, the Mil- 
lennium, and the Day of Judgment. The fresh hopes of the early Christians, 
and the severe persecution they endured, taught them to live in those future 
events with intense satisfaction and comfort. They did not entertain the 
thought of building up a definite consecutive chronological scheme even of 
those symbols which some moderns regard as then already fulfilled ; although 
from the beginning a connection between Eome and Antichrist was univers- 
ally allowed, and parts of the Revelation were regarded as the filling-up of 
the great outline sketched by Daniel and St. Paul. 

Immediately after the triumph of Constantine, the Christians, emanci- 
pated from oppression and persecution, and dominant and prosperous in their 
turn, began to lose their vivid expectation of our Lord's speedy Advent and 
their spiritual conception of his kingdom, and to look upon the temporal 
supremacy of Christianity as a fulfillment of the promised reign of Christ on 
earth. The Roman empire, become Christian, was regarded no longer as 
the object of prophetic denunciation, but as the scene of a millennial de- 
velopment. This new, however, was soon met by the figurative interpreta- 
tion of the millennium, as the reign of Christ in the hearts of all true believers. 
As the barbarous and heretical invaders of the falling empire appeared, they 
were regarded by the suffering Christians as fulfilling the woes denounced 
in the Revelation. The beginning of a regular chronological interpretation 
is seen in Berengaud (assigned by some critics to the 9th century), who 
treated the Revelation as a history of the Church from the beginning of the 
world to its end. And the original Commentary of the Abbot Joachim is 
remarkable, not only for a further development of that method of interpreta- 
tion, but for the scarcely disguised identification of Babylon with Papal 
Rome, and of the second Beast of Antichrist with some Universal Pontiff. 

In the dawn of the Reformation, the views to which the reputation of 
Abbot Joachim had given currency were taken up by the harbingers of im- 
pending change, as by Wicliffe and others ; and they became the foundation 
of that great historical school of interpretation, which up to this time seems 
the most popular of all. It is impossible to construct an exact classification 
of modern interpreters of the Revelation. They are generally placed in 
three great divisions. 

(a.) The Historical or Continuous expositors, in whose opinion the Reve* 



724 Books of the New Testament. Appendix I 

lation is a progressive history of the fortunes of the Church from the first 
century to the end of time. 

(b.) The Prceterist expositors, who are of Opinion that the Revelation has 
been almost or altogether fulfilled in the time which has passed since it was 
written : that it refers principally to the triumph of Christianity over Ju- 
daism and Paganism, signalized in the downfall of Jerusalem and of Rome. 
This is the favorite interpretation with the critics of Germany. 

(c.) The Futurist expositors, whose views show a strong reaction against 
some extravagances of the two preceding schools. They believe that the 
whole book, excepting perhaps the first three chapters, refers principally, if 
not exclusively, to events which are yet to come. 

Each of these three schemes is open to objection. Against the Futurist 
it is argued, that it is not consistent with the repeated declarations of a 
speedy fulfillment at the beginning and end of the book itself (see ch. i. 3 ; 
xxii. 6, 7, 12, 20). Christians, to whom it was originally addressed, would 
have derived no special comfort from it, had its fulfillment been altogether 
deferred for so many centuries. The rigidly literal interpretation of Baby- 
lon, the Jewish tribes, and other symbols, which generally forms a part of 
Futurist schemes, presents peculiar difficulties. 

Against the Prceterist expositors it is urged that prophecies fulfilled ought 
to be rendered so perspicuous to the general sense of the Church as to sup- 
ply an argument against infidelity ; that the destruction of Jerusalem, hav- 
ing occurred twenty-five years previously, could not occupy a large space in 
prophecy ; that the supposed predictions cf the downfall of Jerusalem and 
of Nero appear from the context to refer to one event, but are by this scheme 
separated, and moreover, placed in a wrong order ; that the measuring of the 
temple and the altar, and the death of the two witnesses (ch. xi.), can not 
be explained consistently with the context. 

Against the Historical scheme it is urged that its advocates differ very 
widely among themselves ; that they assume without any authority that the 
1260 days are so many years ; that several of its applications — e. g., of the 
symbol of the ten-horned beast to the Popes, and the sixth seal to the con- 
version of Constantine — are inconsistent with the context; that attempts by 
some of this school to predict future events by the help of the Revelation 
have ended in repeated failures. 

In conclusion it may be stated that two methods have been proposed by 
which the student of the Revelation may escape the incongruities and falla- 
cies of the different interpretations, while he may derive edification from 
whatever truth they contain. It has been suggested that the book may be 
regarded as a prophetic poem, dealing in general and unspecific descriptions, 
much of which may be set down as poetic imagery, mere embellishment. 
But such a view would be difficult to reconcile with the belief that the book 
is an inspired prophecy. A better suggestion is made, or rather revived, by 
Dr. Arnold in his Sermons On the Interpretation of Prophecy : that we should 
bear in mind that predictions have a lower historical sense, as well as a 
higher spiritual sense; that there may be more than one typical, imperfect, 
historical fulfillment of a prophecy, in each of which the higher spiritual ful- 
fillment is shadowed forth more or less distinctly. The recognition of *his 
would pave the way for the acceptance in a modified sense of many o f the 
interpretations of the Historical school, and would not exclude the most 
valuable portions of the other schemes. 



Appendix II. 



Chronological Tables. 



725 



APPENDIX II. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY, 

INCLUDING TOE 

CONNECTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. 

For the sake of greater completeness, these Tables begin with the Retttrn from the Captivity; 
thus repeating the last section of the Tables of Old Testament History, but in a mora 
condensed form. S signifies a Sabbatic year. 

Table I. — The Persian Domination. 



GEEECE AND MACE- 
DONIA. 



53G 

535 
S534 
529 

525 
522 

521 



S520 
515 

514 

510 



458 
|S 457 
1 454 



Return of first cara- 
van under Zerub- 
babel, prince, and 

1. Jeshua, High- 
priest. 

Rebuilding of the 
Temple begun. 

Opposition of Sama- 
ritans. 

Letter to the Per- 
sian king from the 
adversaries. 



Cyrus 



Years 
1 



Edict for the return 
of the Jews. 



The building stop- 
ped by a royal de-| 
cree. 

Haggai and Zecha- 
riaho 



Building resumed. 
Temple dedicated. 



Daniel x.-xii. 

Cambyses (the 
Ahasuerus of Ezra 
iv. 6. Artaxerxes 
in Ezra iv. 7). 

Conquest of 
Egypt. 

The Pseudo-Smer- 
dis (the Magian 
Gomates). 

Darius I., son of 1 
Hystaspes, con- 
firms the edict of 
Cyrus. 

2 

, 7 

Attacks India and S 
European Scythia. 

12 



Tliespis first 
hibits tragedy. 



Tatiquinius SUPER- 
BUS. 



527. Death of Pisis- 
tratus. 



Deatli of Polycrates 
of Samos. 



Ionian revolt 23 
27 



Hipparchus slain. . . 
Hippias expelled. . . 
Republic of A thens 



Kings expelled 

Republic of Rome. 



32 

Xerxes (the 1 

Ahasuerus of 7 
Esther). 8 



11 

Esther andMordecai 
21 



Marathon. 

Salamis. 
Platsea and 
cale. 
Cimon 



My- 



Patricians oppress 

Plebeians. 
Secession to the 

Sacred Mt. 
Tribunes andiEdiles 

of PIeb3. 
Wars with Italians. 



2. Eliashib, H. -P. Artaxerxes I. 

(date uncertain). | Longimanus. 
Revolt of Inaro3 



Battles of the Eu- 
rymedon. 



Commission of Ezra 
Great reformation . . 



in Egypt. 



Athenians in Egypt 



Egypt con- 
quered. 



Patricians yield to 
Plebs. 



219 

219 
220 
225 
227 

229 



200 



279 



726 Chronological Tables. Appendix II. 

Table I. — The Persian Domination — continued. 



B.C. 


JUDAEA. 


PERSIA. 


GREECE AND MACE- 
DONIA. 


ROME. 


1 

A.U.C. 


451 

449 

445 
444 

to 

433 

431 

428 
or423 

424 

405 

S401 

400 

about 
399 
396 

S394 
390 

S3S7 
3S2 

379 

36T 

about 
362 
361 

S359 

S5T 
356 

351 

350 

343 

340 
S33S 

336 

334 

333 
332 

.S331 




Years. 
, 15 




Laws of the XII. 

Tables. 
Decemvirs deposed 
Tribuni Militum... 


303 

305 
309 
310 

323 

328 
329 

330 

349 

350 
353 

354 

355 

S5S 
360 
364 
367 
372 

375 

3S7 

392 
393 

3C5 

397 

318 

399 

404 

411 
414 
416 

41S 

420 

421 
422 

423 

424 




17 


'■ 




21 




Commission of Xe- 


22 




hemiah. 
The walls rebuilt. 
Reading of the Law 


33 


431. Peloponnesian 
war. 




ballat. 


35 


Second commission 
of Nehenriah. 

3. JoiADA, H.-P. 

(date uncertain). 
Samaritan Temple 
on MountGerizim? 


38 


426. War with Veii. 


425. Xerxes II. 

SOGDIANUS. 

thus. 

(Mnemon) . 

Cyrus the younger 
6 














404. End of Ditto.. 








Malachi, Prophet. 
O. T. Canon fixed. 


Retreat of the 10,000 




7 






10 


Agesilaus in Asia. . 


Camillus takes Veii 




12 




16 




Gauls take Rome. . . 




19 


Peace of Antalcidas 
Olynthian War!.... 




24 




(or Jonathan). 


27 


Demosthenes bom. 
Rise of Theban 
power. 






39 


Licinian Rogations 
passed. 




44 


Battle of Mantinea 
Agesilaus in Egypt 

Accession of Pim.ir 
II., king of Mace- 
donia. 

The Social War 




Revolt of Tachoa 45 
in Egypt. 
Artaxerxes dies 47 

Ocnus 1 
3 


Gallic Invasion 










4 


Alexander born 


First Plebeian Dic- 
tator 

First Plebeian Cen- 
sor. 


Alleged captivity of 
Jews. 


Revolt of the Si- 9 
donians. 
10 




(last name in O.T). 


17 




First Samnite War 
Latin War. Decius 




20 








Philip chosen gene- 
ral of the Greeks 
at Corinth. 




War declared by 
the Greeks. 
Darius III. 1 
(Codomanus). 

Invasion of Alex- 3 
ander. 

... 4 






Alexander the 1 

Great. 
Battle of the 3 

Granicus. 








Interview with Al- 
exander ? 

Settlement of Jews 
at Alexandria. 

6. Onias I 11 -P 


5 


Taking of Tyre 5 


Alexander, kine of 




Alexandria built, j Epirua in Italy 
Battle of Arbela 6 


i 

1 o30 




Demosthenes de 7 
Corona ? 




1 









Appendix II. Chronotogicac Tables. 

Table II — The Hellenistic Domination. 



72' 



330 
326 

3j3 
320 



2;3 



2S1 
280 
264 
S261 

251 

250 
S 247 

240 

241 

5 240 



S 25 



S219 
21T 



6, Onias I. R. -P. Empire of Alexander T 

I , . . Alexander returns from India 11 SecondSamnite War 

Death of Alexander at Babvlon 1- 



Ptolemy «akes Je- Ptolemy I., Soter. 
! rusalem. 



Settlements of Jews 
i at Alexandria, in 

Egypt and Cyrene. 
Palestine under An- 

tigonos. 

[Era of the Seleu- 
! cidae.] 

Death of Onias I. 
! {Jos.) 

War of the Diadochi 
i Palestine subject to 
i Egypt till a.d. 19S. 
Death of Onias I. 
: (Eus.) 
7. Simon L, the 
' Just, H.-P. 
Canon of SS. com- 
j pleted? 
S. Eleazab, H.-P. 



Contests of the Dia- 
dochi in Asia and 
Europe. 



1. Seleuccs I. 
cator. 



ended by the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia. 



Jews settle in Syria 



Appius Claudius 
censor. 



Progress of the 
Egyptian Jews. 



. Ptolemy II. Phil- 
adelphus (with his 
father). 
Version of theLXXt Ptolemy IL alone.. 

[X.B. The dates of 

the High -Priests 

down to Onias III. 

are very doubtfuL] 



Splendor of Egypt 



Third Samnite War 

Defeat of the Sam- 

nites. 
[Greece. ^Ftolian, 

and Achaean 

Leagues.] 
G-auls andEtruscans 

defeated. 



9. Manasseii, 1 1. -P. 



The historian 
: netho, fl. . 



Ma- 



10. Onias TJ. H.-P. 

Refuses Tribute. 
Joseph, son of To- 
bias. 

11. Simon II. H.-P. 



Seleucus murdered. Pyrrhus in Italy. . . 
2.ANTiocucsI.Soter War with Pyrrhus 
First Punic War. . . 

3. Antiochus II. [Greece: Growth of 
Theos. I Achaean League. 

Revolt of Parthia. . . Aratus and Philo- 

| pcemen.] 
Era of the Arsacidce] Metellus in Sicily. 

Berosus : historian! Hamilcar Barca 

of Babylon, fl. 

4. Seleucus II. Cal-! 

linicus. - 

Friendly relations Disastrous wars with Peace withCarthage 
with Judaea inter- Egypt and Parthia. 
rupted. 



3. Ptolemy III. En 
ergetes. 
War with Syria. 



236. Seleucus taken 
prisoner by the 
Parthians. 

|5. Seleucus IH. 

J Ceraunus. 

|6. Antiochus III. 

I the Great. 
4. Ptolemy IV. Phi- Quells revolt in Me- 
lopator. I dia. 
! Makes war in Egypt 



Antiochus overruns 
Palestine. 

Ptolemy recovers Victory over . Anti- Defeat at Raphia . . 
Palestine, profanes ochus. 

the Temple, but is Persecutes the Jews The Jews incline to- 
driven out super- of Alexandria. i ward Syria. 
naturally. 



Second Punic War. 
Battle of Trasimene 



424 
4-28 
431 



440 
442 
41-5 
453 

454 

456 
462 
469 



4T3 
474 
490 
493 

503 

504 
507 

508 

513 



514/ 

538 
531 
532 
5S5 
537 



728 Chronological Tables. Appendix II. 

Table II. — The Hellenistic Domination — continued. 



216 
S205 



201 



200 

S198 



197 



S191 



187 



1S1 



The Jews submit 
to Antiochus the 
Great, and are at 
first well treated. 



12. Onias III. H.-P. 



175 



172 
171 



1G8 



167 
166 



Palestine and Ccele- 
Syria conquered 
by Antiochus, and 
confirmed to him 
by the peace with 
Rome. 



5. Ptolemy V. 
Epiphanes (5 years 
old.) 

War with Syria. . , 



His general Scopas 
treats the Jews ill 



Ptolemy 
Cleopatra, 
daughter 
tiochus. 



marries 

the 

of An- 



Attempt of Helio 
dorus to plunder 
the Temple? 



Onias III. deposed 
and the priesthood 
sold to 

Jason (Joshua), 
H.-P. 



Menelaus (Onias), . 
H.-P, 
Hellenism rampant. 



Menelaus deposed. . 

Massacre at Jerusa- 
lem. 

Martyrdom of Elea- 
zar and others. 

Revolt of Matta- 
tuias. . . 



Judas Maccab^eus. 



Renews the war 
against Egypt. 



Many Jews trans- 
planted from Bab 
ylonia to Asia 
Minor. 



Victory at Panium 
over the Egyp 
tians. 



Defeated at Ther- 
mopylae. 



And at Magnesia in 
Asia. 
Peace with Rome 



5. Ptolemy VI. Phi 
lometor (a miner), j Rome 
under his mother 
and tutors. 



'. Sklf.ucus rv. 
Philopator. 

Demetrius sent to 



|S. Antiochus IV. 
j Epiphanes (Epi- 



| manes). 
Great internal dis-j Onias at 
sensions. 



Egypt invaded by 
Antiochus, who is 
ordered out by the 
Romans. 

Joint reign of Ptole- 
my and his broth- 
er Physcon. The 
latter receives Cy- 
rene and Libya 
(163). 



Antioch: 
murdered by the 
contrivance of Me- 
nelaus (171). 



Battle of Canna?..., 



204. Scipio in Africa 
Peace withCarthage 



War with Philip V 



Ended by the Bat 
tie of Cynosce 
phala?. 



War with Antiochus 



The Scipios in Asia 

Antiochus retires 
within the Tau- 
rus. 



War in Spain. 



Expulsion from 

Egypt. 
Persecution of the 

Jews . 
Judsea revolts under 

the Maccabees. 

Defeats of Syrian 
generals by Judas. 

Antiochus in Baby- 
lonia. Dies (164). 



Macedonian War.., 



Battle of Pydna.. . . 

Perseus taken pris- 
oner. 

End of the Macedo- 
nian Kingdom. 

Polybius at Rome. 

Terence exhibits 
the Andria. 



538 
549 



550 
553 



556 



557 



563 



564 
566 



:G7 



573 



579 



582 
5S3 



5SG 



587 
58S 



Appendix II. Chronological Tables. 729 

Table III. — The Maccabees, and Asmon^an Kings. 



168 Revolt of Matta- 
thias. 

On ias IV. titular 
H.-F. 

War against apos- 
tates. 



167 



166 
Dec. 



164 



S163 
162 
161 



15S 
153 
150 

S149 
147 

146 

145 

144 



143 
S142 



1. Judas MACCA- 
BEUS. 

Rededication of the 
Temple. 



League of neigh- 
boring nations de- 
feated. 

Execution of Mene- 
laus. 

End of line of Joza- 
dak. 

Death of Eleazar 
Savaran. 

Alcimus (Jacinius) 

H.-P. set up by the 

Syrians. 

Victory of Adasa. 
Embassy to Rome 
Death of Judas. 
2. Jonathan Ap- 

rnus. 
Death of John the 

Maccabee. 
Death of Alcimus. 
Peace with Syvia. 

Jonathan High- 
Priest. 
Alliance with Balas. 



Favors to Jerusa- 
lem. 

Defeat of Apollo- 
nius. 

Alliance with De- 
metrius, whose life 
Jonathan saves. 



Ptolemy VI. — con- 

tinned. 



Antiochus 
continued. 



IV, 



Onias IV. flees to Judas defeats the 



Egypt, and founds 
a temple at Leon 
topolis. 



Partition of the 
kingdom with 

Pliyscon. 



Balas marries Ptol- 
emy's daughter 
Cleopatra. 



Ptolemy sides witli 
Demetrius against 
Balas. 



Antiochus grants 
new honors to 
Jonathan and his 
brother Simon. 

Jonathan taken and 
put to death by 
Tryphon . 
. Simon Thassi, 
H.-P. 



7. Ptolemy VII. 
Physcon, or Euer- 
getes. 



Embassy of Scipio. . 



Syrian generals. 



Battle of Bethsura 
Judas takes Jerusa 
lem. 

Antiochus in Ely- 
mais. 

Death of Antiochus 
9. Antiochus V 
Eupator takes 

Bethsura and be 
sieges Jerusalem. 
Peace with the 
Jews. 



10. Demetrius 
Soter. 



Defeat of Nicanor. 
Bacchidcs in Syria. 
Battle of Eleasa. 
Bacchides retires to 

Syria on the death 

of Alcimus. 



Returns and is de- 
feated. 

Revolt of Alexander 
Bftlns. 

11. Alexander Ba- 
las seizes the 
throne. 



Macedonia con- 
quered. 



Philosophers ex- 



Alliance with Ju- 
dsea, inscribed on 
brass. 



Demetrius returns. 



12. Demetrius II. 

Nicator. 

Iryphon sets up 
Antiochus VI. , 
who overthrows 
Demetrius. 

Tryphon at war 
with Jonathan. 



Tryphon kills An- 
tiochus. 



Ccltiberian War. 
Galba in Spain 

Third Punic War. 



Carthage and Co- 
rinth destroyed. 

Africa and Greece 
become Roman 
Provinces. 

War with Viriathus. 



Q. Metellus 
Spain. 



Ff2 






730 Chronological Tables. Appendix IL 

Table III. — The Maccabees, and Asmon^ean Kings — continued. 



141 

140 
138 



Tower of Zkm taken 

First year of Jewish 
freedom-. 

Simon made hered- 
itary prince of the 
Jews. 

Prosperity of Judsea 



137 Recognized by 

j Rome. 

I Receives from An 

I tiochus VII. the 

j privilege of coin 

[ ing money. 
S 135) Murder of Simon. 

;4. John Hyrcanus, 

I H.-P. 
133 I Surrenders Jerusa 

i lem. 
128 Goes to Parthia with 
Antiochus. 

Judcea independent 



125 



107 



106 



105 



81 



73 



Hyrcanus conquers 
the land E. of Jor- 
dan, Idumaea and 
Samaria. 



Destroys the Tern 
pie on Mount Geri 
zim. 

Joins the Sadducees 



Death of Hyrcanus. 

5. Aristobulus I., 
H.-P. 

Assumes the title of 
king. 

6. Alkxanoee Jan- 

NjEUS. 

Conquest of Gaza, 
Moab, etc. 
Civil war. 



Dying reconcilia- 
tion with the Phar- 
isees. 

7. Alexandra 
(queen). 

Hyrcanus II., H.-P. 



8. Ptolemy VIII. 
Lathyrus (Soter). 

Cyrene finally sepa- 
rated from Egypt, 



Driven to Cyprus 
by his mother 
Cleopatra, who 
reigns with her sec 
ond son. 

Ptolemy IX. Alex- 
ander I. 

[Great confusion to 
the end of the dy- 
nasty]. 

Judaea invaded by 
Ptolemy Lathyrus, 
rescued by Cleopa- 
tra. 



Ptolemy X. Alex- 
ander II. 

Ptolemy XI. Dio- 
nysus, or Aulercp. 



Demetrius prisoner 
to the Parthians. 

13. Antiochus VII 
Sidetes, 



Deposes Tryphon, 
and makes war on 
Simon. 

Grants peace 
Hyrcanus. 

Antiochus killed in 
Parthia. 

Demetrius II. re- 
leased. 

14. Seleucus V. 

15. Antiochus VIII. 
Grypus, 

16. And Antiochus 
IX. Cyzicenue, 
rival kings. 



From b.c. 95 to 83. 

17. Seleucus VI. 

18. ANTiocnus X. 
Eusebes. 

19. Pjiii.ippus. 

20. Demetrius III. 
Eucserus. 

21. Antiochus XI. 
Epiphanes. 

22. Antiochus XII. 
Dionysus. 

A period of confu- 
sion. 

3. Tigranes, king 
of Armenia, reigns 
over Syria, till he 
is defeated by Lh- 
cullus, 09. 



Numantine War. 



Fall of Numantia. 



Death of Tib. 
Gracchus. 



123. Caius Gracchus 
122. Tribune. 
121. Death of C 
Gracchus. 

111. Jugurthine 
War. 



106. Jugurtha taken 
Cicero and Pompey 
born. 



102. Marius routs 
the Cimbri and 
Teutones. 

100. C. Julius Cae- 
sar born. 

92. Sulla in Asia ; 
receives a Parthian 
embassy. 

90. Social War. 
8. First Mithrida- 
tic War, and Civil! 
War at Rome. 

»6. Death of Marius, 

82. Sulla Dictator., i 

74. Great Mithrida- 
tic War. 

70. Mithridates flies 
to Armenia. 

69. Lucullus de- 
feats Tigrane*. 



Appendix II. Chronological Tables. 731 

Table III. — The Maccabees, and Asmon^an Kings — continued. 



B.O. 


sudMx. 


EGYPT. 


SYRIA. 


EOME. 


AU.C. 
685 


1 69 


8. Hyrcanus II. 
(about 40) king, 




23.AntIOCHUSXIH. 

last (nominal 










deposed by his 




king under Roman 








brother after 3 




protection. 








months. 












9. Aeistobulus II. 












Rise of Antipa- 












TEE. 










68 


Hyrcanus and Anti- 






68. Success of Mith- 


686 




pater fly to Aretas, 






ridates. 






king of Arabia. 






67. War ngainst the 
Pirates, Pompey 
general. 


687 


S65 


Civil War of Hyrca- 
nus and Antipater, 




66*. Scaurus at Da- 


66. Mithridatic Wai 


688 






mascus. 


committed to Pom- 




aided by Aretas, 




Pompey deposes 


pey. 






against Aristobu- 




Antiochus. 


Defeats Mithridates 






lus. 




Syria a Roman 


in Armenia, and 






Scaurus in Judaea : 




province. 


subdues Tigranes. 






hears the embas- 






65. Levee of kings 


6S9 




sadors of both 






in Pontus. 






brothers. 






Pompey in the Cau- 
casian countries. 




64 


Arbitration of Pom- 




Pompey at Damas- 


Pompey returns to 


690 








pey. 




cus. 


Syria. 




63 


He takes Jerusalem 




Receives Jewish 
embassadors. 


Cicero consul. 
Conspiracy of Cata- 


691 




on the Day of 






Atonement (Sept. 




Roman Governors 


line. 






22), and enters the 




of Syria. 


Birth of Augustus. 






Holy of Holies. 




62. _<Emilius Scau- 


62. Caesar pr&tor. 


602 




Hyrcanus II. re- 




rus, Qucestor pro 


v 






stored as H.-P. 




Prmtore. 








Antipater civil gov- 






61. Triumph of 


693 




ernor (procurator). 




ippus, Propraetor. 


Pompey. 






Judcea subject to 






60. Caesar in Spain. 


694 




Rome from this 
time. 






First Triumvirate. 




59 




Ptolemy Auletes 
bribes Caesar to 


Lentulus Marcel- 
linus, Propraetor. 


Caesar consul. 


695 










obtain his ac- 












knowledgment as 
king. 

Ptolemy Auletes 
expelled by his 








S58 






Caesar in Gaul. 
Cicero banished . 


636 










subjects. 












Goes to Rome. 












Bebenice and 












Tbyph^ena. reign 












during his ab- 












sence. 








Si 


Successes of AIpx- 




Gabinius, Procon- 


Cicero recalled. 


697 




ander, son of Aris- 




sul. 




tobulua II., against 




Syria is henceforth 








Hyrcanus. 




a consular prov- 








Defeated by Gabi- 




ince. 








nius, proconsul of 










\ 


Syria. 










1 


New Constitution : 












the Five Great 












Sanhedrims. 










55 


Re-appearance and 




Expedition of Gabi- 


Cfesai's first descent 


699 




defeat of Aristobu- 




nius into Parthia. 


on Britain. 






lua II., and his son 












Antigonus. 












732 Chronological Tables. Appendix II. 

Tabde III, — The Maccabees, and Asmon^an King s— continued. 



55 



54 



53 



52 



S51 



50 



48 



4G 



45 



$44 



43 



42 



New Insurrection of 
Alexander: his de- 
feat at Mt. Tabor. 

Crassus at Jerusa- 
lem: plunders the 
Temple. 



Cassius enslaves 
30,000 Jews — the 
partisans of Aristo- 
bulus. 



Caesar releases Ari- 
stobulus, who is 
murdered by the 
Pompeians. 

Alexander put to 
death by Scipio at 
Antioch. 

Antipater aids 

Caesar, who makes 
him a citizen and 
1st Procurator of 
Judcea, with Hyr- 
canus as Kthnarch. 

Immunities granted 
to the Jews. 

Antipater escorts 
Caesar to Pontus. 

Appoints his sons, 
Phasael and Herod, 
captains of Judaea 
and Galilee. 

Herod hostile to 
Ilyrcanus. 

Decree of Caesar for 
refortifying Jerusa- 
lem! 

Cassius plunders 
Jerusalem. 

Antipater poisoned. 

Herod visits Jeru- 
salem. 



Gabinius in Egypt, 

Restores Ptolemy 

Auletes. 



Cleopatra, with 
Ptolemy XII. and 
Ptolemy XIII. 



Crassus, Proconsul 



Slain by the Parthi 
ans. 
Cassius Qucestor. 



Caesar in Egypt. 

Alexandrine war- 
ends in Jan. b.c.47 
(March 27, Old 
Calendar). 



Herod defeats Anti- 
gonus, and enters 
Jerusalem in tri- 
umph. 

Is reconciled to 
Hyrcanus and be- 
trothed to Mari- 
amne. 

Herod gains favor 
with Antony. 

10. Antigonus set 
up by the Parthi- 
ans. 



Bibulus, Proconsul. 



[Scipio, Pomptian 
Proconsul.] 



Caesar in Britain, 
the second time. 



Sex. Julius Caesar. 
C.J. Caesar in Syria 



Q. Caecilius Bassus 
Prcetor. 



Antony in Asia. 
Meets Cleopatra at 

Tarsus, and goes to 

Egypt. 



Antony goes to Tyre 
on Ids way against 
the Parthians ; 
thence to Athens. 



C. Cassius Longinus, 
Proconsul, arrives 
in Syria. 

[Note. All the sub- 
sequent governors 
are Lcgaii.] 



L. Decidius Saxa 
Lcgatus. 

Invasion of the Par- 
thians under Paco- 
rus and Labicnus. 



Clodius slain by 
Milo. 



Caesar finishes the 
conquest of Gaul 



50. Measures of 
Pompey against 
Caesar. 

Civil war begins. 

Caesar enters Italy. 

Flight of Pompey to 
Greece. 

Caesar in Spain 
against the Pompe- 
ians. 

Battle of Pharsalia. 

Pompey killed in 
Egypt. 



War with Phar- 
naces. 
Caesar Dictator. 

African War. 
The Calendar r< 
formed. 

War in Spain. 

Death of Cesar. 



War of Mntina. 
Second Triumvir- 
ate. 



Battles of Philippi. 



War of Perusia 

Perusia taken. 
Agrippa sent against 
Antony. 



700 
701 
702 

703 

704 
705 

706 

707 

70S 

709 
710 

711 
712 



713 
714 



Appendix il Chronological Tables. 733 

Table III. — The Maccabees, and Asmonjean Kings— continued. 



8S 



S37 



Phasaelput to death, 
and Hyrcanus mu- 
tilated. 

Heeod escapes to 
Rome, gains over 
the triumvirs, and 
is appointed by the 
Senate King of 
Judaea about the 
end of the year. 
[Hence to his death 
in n. c. 4, Josephu 
reckons his reign 
37 years.] 

Herod returns, col- 
lects an army, and 
unites with Silo, 
who deserts his 
cause. 

Conquers Galilee. 

Silo joins Ventidius. 
Ventidius sends aid 

to Herod. 
Herod marches to 

join Antony. 
His brother Joseph 

slain by Antigonus. 
Herod at Acre. 

Herod marches 

against Jerusalem 
in the Spring. 

Marries Mariamne. 

Is joined by Sosius, 
and takes Jerusa- 
lem on the Day of 
Atonement, Oct. 5, 
and on a Sabbath. 

Death of Antigonus. [ 

End of the Asmo-l 
vcean line. 



Leagues with Sex 
Pompey, and be 
sieges Brundisium, 

Receives the Eastern 
Provinces. 



The legate 
slain. 



Saxa Death of Fulvia. 

Reconciliation of 



Antony marries Oc- 
tavia, goes to 
Greece, and spends 
the winter at 
Athens. 



Antony joins Ven- 
tidius after his 
victory, and be- 
sieges Samosata ; 
receives Herod 
there. Thence re- 
turns to Athens, 
leaving Sosius as 
his legate. 

Antony in Italy. 

Returns by way of 
Greece, parting 
from Octavia at 
Corcyra. 



P. Ventidius Bassus 



Legatus, 
against them 
Antony. 



The Parthians are 
defeated, and La 
bienus slain. 

Ventidius recovers 
Syria. 

Is bribed by Antigo- 
nus. 

Great victory of 
Ventidius over the 
Parthians : Pacorus 
slain. 

Ventidius returns to 
Rome and triumphs. 

C. Sosius, Legatus, 
sends aid to Herod. 

Antony at Antioch, 
at the close of the 
year, where he 
condemns Anti- 
gonus to death by 
scourging and be- 
heading. 



Octavian and An- 
tony at Brundisi- 
um. 

The empire divided. 

Antony and Octa- 
vian at Rome. 



Conference at Mise- 
num between Oc- 
tavian, Antony, 
and Sex. Pompey. 



War between Octa- 
vian and Sex. 
Pompey. 

Agrippa commands 
the fleet. 



Renewal of the tri- 
umvirate for five 
years. 

Preparations of Oc- 
tavian against Sex- 
tus Pompey. 



715 



716 



717 



734 



Chronological Tables. 



Appendix Hi 



Table IV. — Kingdom of Herod the Great, subject to and under the 
Protection or Rome. 



3V 



S5 



33 



32 



S30 



Hebod the Great 1 
His actual reign 
dates by Consular 
years from Jan. 1, 
or by Jewish sacred 
years from the first 
of Nisan. 
Ananel made H.-P. 

Herod 2 

Hyrcanus comes 
from Babylon to 
Jerusalem. His 

daughter Alexan- 
dra seeks the High- 
priesthood from 
Cleopatra for her 
son Aristobulus. 
Herod deposes Ana 
nel, and appoints 
AiiiSTonuLUsH.-l 

Herod 3 

Aristobulus (set. 17) 
Avarmly received 
at the Feast of 
Tabernacles, and 
drowned soon after 
(Sept. 19). 
Ananel H. -P. 

Herod 4 

Goes to Antony, and 
appeases him by 
presents. 

Puts his uncle 
Joseph to death. 

Herod 5 

Quarrel with Mal- 
chus, King of 
Arabia. 

Herod 6 

Levies troops on the 
side of Antony, 
who sends him 
against Malchus. 
Herod, at first victo- 
rious, defeated in 
Coele-Syria. 

Herod 7 

Dreadful earthquake 
in Judaea. 

Herod sues to Mal- 
chus for peace, 
which is refused. 
Defeats the Arabi- 
ans. Puts Hyrca- 
nus to death. 

Herod ,\..8 

Meets Octavian at 
Rhodes, and is con- 
firmed in his king- 
dom (about April). 
Escorts Octavian to 
Antioch, and re- 
turns to Judaea. 



EGTPT. 


SYKIA. 


EOME. 


A.U.O. 






See Table IH. 


717 


Antony sends for 
Cleopatra, and 
gives her Phoenicia, 
Crete, etc. 

Antony marches 
against the Parthi- 
ans. 

Cleopatra meets Her- 
od in Judaea. 


Antony in Syria, 


Naval war against 
Sextus Pompey. 

The latter, defeated, 
retires to Lesbos, 
and seeks aid from 
Antony, but is dis- 
appointed. 


71S 


Antony retires to 
Egypt. 








Cleopatra, at the so- 
licitation of Alex- 
andra, appeals to 
Antony against 
Herod. 


L. Mtjnatics Plan- 
cub, Lcgattts. 


Sex. Pompey put to 
death at Miletus by 
Antony's general 
Titius. 


718 


Antony summons 
Herod before him 
at Laodicea. 

Gives Cleopatra 
Coele-Syria. 

Antony in Armenia. 

Returns to Egypt. 

Antony forbids Oc- 
tavia from joining 
him. 

Antony in Media. 

Antony and Cleopa- 
tra join the fleet at 
Ephesus. 

Proceed to Athens, 
and thence to Cor- 
cy;a, and winter at 
Patrae. 




Octavian in Gaul. 

Astrologers and sor- 
cerers expelled 
from Rome. 

Sosius triumphs for 
the capture of Je- 
rusalem. 

Agrippa aedile. 

Final rupture be- 
tween Octavian and 
Antony. 

Sosius and Domi- 
tius, the consuls, 
join Antony. Ti- 
tius and Plancus 
go over to Octa- 
vian. * 


no 








721 
79,9, 






Flight of Cleopatra 
and Antony from 
Actium to Egypt. 

Herod advises An- 
tony to put Cleo- 
patra to death, and 
then deserts his 


L. Calpurnius Bii> 
ulus, Lcgatus. 


Battle op Actium 

(Sep. 2). 
Octavian proceeds 

to Asia. 
Winters at Samos. 


723 


cause. 








Three embassies 
from Antony and 
Cleopatra to Octa- 
vian. 

Egypt reduced (o a 
Roman province. 

[Note. Egypt still n 
a chief seat of the t 


Q. Droius, Legatus. 

.tains importance in 
rewish Dispersion.] 


After a hasty visit 
to Italy, Octavian 
advances to Egypt. 

Death of Antony 
and Cleopatra. 

Scripture History as 


724 



Appendix ii. Chronological Tables. 

Table IV. — Kingdom of Herod the Great — continued. 



V61 



29 |Herod 9 

[Puts Mariamne to 

I death, about the 

close of the year. 

28 |Herod 10 

Alexandra,daughter 
of Hyrcanus, put to 
death. 
27 Herod 11 



Herod 12 

Salome divorces 
Costabarus, and be- 
trays the last of 
the family of Hyr- 
canus, who are put 
to death. 

Herod builds a the- 
| atre at Jerusalem 
and amphitheatre 
| at Jericho, and 
1 founds games in 
! honor of Augustus. 

Herod 13 

\ Indignation at Iler- 
j od's Romanizing, 
j Conspiracy of the 
Ten. 
Herod strengthens 
the Antonia and 
fortifies Samaria. 



EGYPT, ABABIA, ETC. 



Famine and Plague. 



S23 



24 jHerod 14 

|Lend3 500 auxil- 
iaries to iElius Gal- 
lug. 

Another famine in 
Judaea and Syria ; 
relieved by Herod 
with corn from 
Egypt. 
His sons Alexander 
j and Aristobulus 
j sent to Rome. 
Trachonitis, Aura- 
nitis, and Batanea, 
added to his king- 
' dom. 

, Herod 15 

! Employs 50,000 men 
to gather the abun- 
dant harvest. 
[Note. — It seems 
that the practice 
now was to reap, 
though not to sow, 
on the Sabbatic 
year.] 

Visitg Agrippa in 
the winter. 



Egypt is among the 
imperial provinces. 



Disgrace and suicide 
of the prefect Cor 
nelius Gallus. 



M. Valeeius Mes- Three triumphs of 
BALA, Legatus. Octavian. 

Temple of Janus! 

shut. 

(?) M. Tlllils Cic- Illness of Octavian! 

eeo (son of the or- Census taken. No. I 

ator), Legatus. of citizens 4,164,000 

Syria an imperial The name of Au- 
proviuce, governed gustus conferred 
on Octavian, with 
supreme power for 
ten years. 

He divides the prov- 
inces with the Sen- 
ate. 

Augustus in Gaul 
and Spain. 



by a Prefect. 
Legatus Cessans 



Expedition of the Vabbo, Legatus. 
prefect JEuvs 

Gallus into Ara- 
bia. 

The Ethiopians, un- 
der Candace, in- 
vade Egypt : de- 
feated by Petro- 
nius. 



2&\\xxs Gallus enters M. Vipsanius Augustus again ill. 

the country of Are- Ageippa, special Receives the Trib 
tas, the relative of Legatus, adminis- unitian power for 
Obodas, King of J ters the province life. 
Petra; and returns; from Lesbos. Jealousy between 

to Egypt. Receives a visit Marcellus and 

from Herod at Agrippa. 

Mytilene. Death of Marcellus. 



He falls sick at 

Tarraco. 
During his absence, 

Julia is married to 

Marcellus. 
Temple of Janus 

again shut. 



Augustus returns to 
Rome, still ill. 



7-:. 5 



126 



727 



728 



729 



730 



731 



736 Chronological Tables. Appendix II 

Table IV.— Kingdom of Herod the Great — continued. 



22 



21 



£0 



19 



IS 



EGYPT, ARABIA, ETC. 



Herod ..16 

Rebuilds his palace, 
Removes Jesus, 
the son of Phabi, 
H.-P., the successor 
of Ananel, and 
appoints Simon H.- 
P., whose daughter 
Mariamne be mar- 
ries. Builds the 
fortress of Herodi- 
um Ty m. from Je- 
rusalem. 

Herod 17 

Founds Ccesarea, 
probably in this 
year. 

Herod 18 

Defends himself be- 
fore Augustus, at 
Antioch, against a 
complaint of the 
Gadarenes. Au- 
gustus gives Pa- 
neas to Herod, 
and the Tetrarchy 
of Peisea to his 
brother Pheroras. 
Appoints Herod 
perpetual joint 
Procurator of' Syr- 
ia. Herod erects 
a temple to Au- 
gustus at Paneas. 
Remits one-third of 
the taxes. Pro- 
poses the scheme 
of rebuilding the 
Temple. 

Herod 19 

Preparations for 
rebuilding the 

Temple. 

Herod..., 20 

Rebuilding of the 
Temple (the va6? 
| or Holy Place) 
begun about Pass- 
over. Herod sails 
to Rome and brings 
back his sons Aris- 
tobulus and Alex- 
ander; and banish- 
es Antipater, his 
son by Doris. 

Herod 21 

Marries Alexander 
to Glaphyra, 

daughter of Ar- 
chelaus, King of 
Cappadocia, and 
Aristobulus to Ber- 
enice. 
The Holy Place 
finished. 



The ^Ethiopians 
repulsed by Pe- 



The ^Ethiopians 
send an embassy 
to Augustus at 
Samos. . . 



Agrippa summoned 
from Asia to marry 
Julia. 



Augustus visits 

Syria: deprives 
the Tyrians and 
Sidonians of their 
freedom : settles 
the petty king- 
doms. 

Tiberius sent to 
Armenia to place 
Tigranes on the 
throne. 



M. T. Cicero, Lega- 
tees (son of the ora- 
tor), placed here by 
some writers. 



Plague and famine 

in Italy. 
Conspiracy of Mu- 

rsona. 
Augustus visits 

Sicily. 



Agrippa forbids 

Egyptian rites at 
Rome. 

Augustus in Greece 
"Winters at Samos. 

Augustus in Asia 
Minor and Syria. 
The standards of 
Crassus restored 
by King Phraates. 
Escorted b) r Herod 
to the Syrian coast 
(probably at Se- 
leucia). Augustus 
winters at Samos. 

Birth of Caius, the 
son of Agrippa and 
Julia. 



Agrippa goes to 
Gaul and Spain. 

Augustus returns to 
Rome. 

Supreme power re- 
newed to Augustus 
for five years ; and 
Tribunitian power 
to Agrippa for five 
years. 



Ludi Sceculares,f>th 
time. 

Birth of Lucius Cae- 
sar, son of Agrippa, 
whom Augustus 
adopts, with his 
brother Caius. 



Appendix II. Chronological Tables. 737 

Table IV. — Kingdom of Herod the Great — continued. 



S16 



14 



13 



12 



Herod 22 

Goes to meet Agrip- 
pa, and invites him 
to Judaea. 

Herod 23 

Receives the visit of 
Agrippa. 



Herod 24 

Sails to visit Agrip 
pa. Follows him to 
the Euxine, and 
meets him at Sin- 
ope (see col. 3). 
Privileges of the Jews 
confirmed by Agrip 
pa. 
Herod addresses the 
Jews, and remits 
one-fourth of the 
taxes. 
Intrigues of Salome 
and Pheroras 

against Aristobulus 
and Alexander. 
Antipater recalled, 

Herol 25 

Advancement of 
Antipater. Herod 
takes him to vL-it 
Agrippa, who takes 
Antipater to Rome, 
whence he writes 
letters against Aris- 
tobulus and Alex- 
ander. 

Herod 26 

Refuses the hand of 
Salome to the Ara- 
bian Syllaeus. 
Further intrigues 
against the sons of 
Mariamne. 



Herod 27 

Herod sails to Rome 
with Aristobulus 
and Alexander, 
whom he accuses 
before Augustus at 
Aquileia. 

Augustus effects a 
reconciliation. 

Herod returns by 
way of Cilicia. 

Invests Antipater, 
Aristobulus and 
Alexander with in- 

I signia of royalty. 

[Birth of Agrippa, 
son of Aristobulus. 



EGYPT, ARABIA, ETC 



During Herod's ab- 
sence the Tracho- 
nites rebel, at the 
instigation of Syl- 
lseus. 



Ageippa, again Leg- 
atus, sent to regu-j 
late aifairs of Syria, 
arrives in Asia. 

Visits Judaea : sees 
Caesarea, Alexan- 
drium, Herodium 
Hyrcania. Sacri 
fices in the Temple 
at Jerusalem, and 
returns to Ephesus. 

Agrippa' s expedition 
against Bosporus. 

Herod pleads with 
him for the Ilians. 

(Nicolaus Damas- 
cene employed in 
this affair.) 

Returns with Herod 
to Samos. 



End of Agrippa's 
10 years' adminis- 
tration of Asia and 
Syria. No special 
prefect during this 
interval. 

The government 
now falls to M. 
TiTius, Legatus. 

Asia (the province) 
suffers from earth- 
quakes. 



Augustus goe3 to 
Gaul. Settles dis- 
turbances on all the 
European frontiers. 

The Rhaetians con- 
quered by TiberiuB 
and Drusus. 



Augustus in Gaul. 



Augustus returns to 
Rome from Gaul, 
and Agrippa from 
the East. 

Tribunitian power 
to Agrippa for five 
years more. H 
goes, to Pannonia. 



Death of Lepidus. 

Augustus Pont. 
Max. 

Death of Agrippa. 

Birth of Agrippa 
Postumus. 

Victories of Tibe- 
rius in Pannonia, 
and of Drusus in 
Germany. 

Drusus in Germany. 

Augustus at Mi- 
lan, Ravenna, and 
Aquileia ; while Ti- 
berius subdues the 
revolt of Dalmatia 
and Pannonia. 

Herod contributes 
300 talents for the 
games (Augusta- 
lia?), and receives 
the copper mines 
of Cyprus. 

Marriage of Julia to 
Tiberius. 

Death of Octavia. 



rss 



739 



740 



741 



742 



743 



738 ChronoCogical Tables. Appendix II. 

Table IV. — Kingdom of Herod the Great — continued. 



S 9 



The Outer Temple 
(lepoi) finished. 

Herod 23 .Massacre of 

Building of Caesarea Trachonites 
finished. Herod. 

Herod opens David's 
tomb in search of 
treasure. 

New family dissen- 
sions appeased for 
the time. 



EGYPT. ARAMA, ETC. 



the 
by 



Herod 23 

New family dissen- 
sions, appeased by! 
Archelaus, King of, 
Cappadocia. 

Herod 30; 

Sails with Archelaus: 
to Italy, to state his [ 
case against SylUr-' 
us. 

Visits Olympia on 
the way, and makes 
presents for the 
games (Midsum- 
mer, 01.193-1). 



Continued disturb- 
ances in Tracho- 
nitis. 



Parthian hostages 
delivered to the 
prefect Titius. 



C. Sentitjs Satur- 
nfnus, Lcgatus 
(probably in this or 
the next year). 



Sylla?us engages to Herod comphi'ns to 
give up the Tra- Saturninus of the 



chonite brigands, 
but sails for Kome 
without performing 
the engagement. 

Remains there, and 
accuses Herod to 
Augustus. 



7 Herod 31 Herod raze3 the 

In disgrace with Trachonite strong- 
Augustus about; hold, and makes 

I the Arabian war: war on the Ara- 

| henceforth to rank bians. 

! as a subject. Aeftas succeeds 

He sends Nicolaus; Obodas as king 

: Damascenus to of Arabia Petr.ra. 

j Rome; also another jSyllpeus condemned 

| embassy to com-' to death by Angus- 
plain of Alexander! tus; but first sent 

I aud Aristobulus. to Arabia to make 

! Herod allowed to reparation. 

I proceed against He plots against 

them in conjunc-! Herod. 

tion with a council. 'Augustus confirms 

i Aretas, instead of 

giving Petra to 

6 Herod 32 Herod. 

.The Council meets ' Complicated in- 
at Beiytusandcon-j trigues of Syllaeus, 

I demns Alexander! Fabatus (Caesar's 
and Aristobulus,] procurator), and 
who are strangled Herod. 

i at Sebaste (Sama- Herod settles Zani- 
ria). aris, a Babylonian 

[Agitation in Judaea. Jew, in Batanca. 

Antipater tries to, 

I gain partisans by, 

' gifts, and then by! 

! terror. [.Mr. Lewiris Dates. 

Forms a plot with Feb. 22 (about), 

i Pheroras,Doris,&c, | Birth of John the 
against Herod. | Baptist. Aug. 1 

He procures a letter (about), Nativity 
summoning him to of Jesus Christ. 
Rome. | See c. xii. p. 35S.] 



Trachonites 
Syllaeus. 



and 



Census of Palestine, 
under Saturninus, 
perhaps connected 
with the threat of 
Augustus to treat 
Herod as a subject. 

The census was 
ordered in this 
year and carried 
out in the next. 



Augustus in Gaul. 

Tiberius subdues the 
Dalmatians and 
Daca?, and Drusus 
subdues the Chatti. 
They return to 
Rome with Augus- 
tus. 

Aug. 1. Claudius 
born. 

Death of Drusus. 

Tiberius again sub- 
dues the Dalma- 
tians and Panno- 
nians. 

Augustus receives 741J 
the supreme power 
for 10 years more. 



Proceeds to Gaul 
with Tiberius, who 
crosses the Rhine 

Both return to 
Rome. 

Death of Maecenas. 

Census of Roman 
citizens. 

Tiberius goes to 
Germany. 

Augustus at Rome. 

Reparations for 
absorbing Juda?a 
into the Empire 



Saturninus and the 
procurator Volurn- 
nius take part in 
the trial of the 
sons of Mariamne 
(an indication of 
Herod's subjec- 
tion). 

Saturninus receives 
presents from An- 
tipater. 

P. QuiNTir/ius Va- 
rus (Legatm) suc- 
ceeds Saturninus 
before Sept. 2. 



Tiberius in Arme- 
nia. 

Retires to Rhodes, 
and remains there 
seven years. 



Appendix II. Chronological Tables. 739 

Table IV. — Kingdom of Herod the Great — continued. 



EGYPT, ARABIA, ETC 



Syllaeus 
Rome. 



goes to 



Aug. 



Nov. 



6 The census com- 
mences about July. 

The Pharisees refuse 

i the oath to Caesar 

i and Herod, and are 

; fined. 

They spread the 

! report that Messi- 
ah has come ; and 

i Herod puts their 

i leaders to death 

5 jllerod 33 

Apr. Sends Antipater to 

! Rome with his 

! will, appointing! 
him his heir, and 

! recalls thence his 

j sons Archelaus and 

I Philip. 

;Pheroras retires to 

I Petraea. His death 
discovers Antipa- 

I ter's plot. 

(Disgrace of Doris. 

Simon deposed, and 
Matthias made 
H.-P. (before the 
Fast, Sept. 11). 

Bathyllus sent by 
Antipater to poison 
Herod. 

Antipater lands at 
Ctesarea, goes to 

i Jerusalem, and is 

i condemned by a 

j Council. Herod 

j writes to Augustus. 

Falls ill, and alters 
his will, making 
Herod Autipas his 

! successor. 
4 iHerod 34 

.Goes to Jericho. 

Pulling down of the 
eagle, the symbol 

I of Roman power. 

i Matthias deposed, 
and Joazar made 

| H.-P. 

j Herod harangues I home; the purifi 
the chiefs of the; cation of Maiy 

I nation at Jericho, 
and bur 
Mar.\ Rabbis. 
12-ld\ Eclipse of the Moon 

15-lS|Goes to the springs' Mary with Jesus 
of Callirhoa, but! to Egypt; and the 
without effect : and massacre of the 
i3 plunged in a children at Beth- 
bath of oil. lehem, must all be 
Despairs of his life, j comprehended in 

j Returns to Jericho :i the first tln*ee 

! donation to the! months of this 

i army. Jewish! year. 

j chiefs shut up in! 

I the Hippodrome, j 



Varans is present at 



C. Caesar receives 



Jerusalem at trial ! the Toga Yirilis. 
of Antipater, and! 
returns next day; 
to Antioch. 



5 end, or 4 beg" NATIVITY OF JESUS CHRIST, ac- 
cording to Snlpicius and most modern authorities. 
Note. On this view The Census, still in 
of the Nativity,; progress (if begun 
the events at Beth- in u.c. 6), was prob- 
lehem ; the arrival; ably one cause of 
of the Magi at the disturbance at 
Jerusalem, their i Jerusalem, 
adoration at Beth- 
lehem, and return 



and presentation 
the of Jesus in the 
i Temple ; the flight 
of Joseph and 



19 



20 



743 



75^ 



740 



Chronological Tables. 



Appendix II. 



Table IV. — Kingdom of Herod the Great — continued. 



i 

B.C. 


3VDMK. 


EGYPT, ARABIA, ETC. 


SYRIA. 


ROME. 


AU.O. 


4 
Mar. 


Herod orders their 








750 


27 


deatli immediately 
on his own. 

Answer from Rome 
about Antipater. 

Herod attempts sui- 
cide. 

Last attempt of An- 
tipater ; Herod 
orders his death. 
Makes a new will. 










Apr. 


Herod pies at Jer- 










1 


icho, five days aft- 
er the execution of 
A ntipater, in his 
70th year. 










'2 


The prisoners in the 
Hippodrome set 
free. 

Aeciieeaus is greet- 
ed as King. 

Funeral of Herod. 










9 


Archelans sacrifices 
in the Temple. 










10 


Riot and massacre 










Pass- 


in the Templs. 










ver. 


Archelaus goes to 
(Jassarea, ha? an in- 
terview with "Varus, 
and sails for Rome, 


Joseph and Mary 
return from Egypt, 
with Jesus, and 
turn aside to Naz- 










whither Herod An- 


areth in Galilee. 










TIPA8 follows. 



















Appendix II. 



Chronological Tables. 



741 



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INDEX 



il, Abgarus, king of Edessa," 
C75. 

Abilene, at the time of Herod, 
81. 

Abtaleon, Jewish rabbi, 78. 

Aceldama, 328. 

Acetum, 324. 

Achaia, its contributions for 
the poor in Jerusalem, 494. 
Mission of Timotheus and 
Erastus to, 507, 50S. 

Achaicus, with others, carries 
the epistle to the Corinthi- 
ans, 512, 513. 

Acrocorinthus, the, 4S2. 

Actium, battle of, 89. 

Acts of the Apostles, not a 
complete apostolic history. 
C7S. Its real purpose, 378, 
Break between it and the 
earliest ecclesiastical his- 
tory, 378. 
• — , chronology of the, 419- 
423. Conclusions of the, 
5S3. Written by St. Luke, 
6S7, 709. Its contents, 709, 

710. Time and place at 
which it was written, 710, 

711. It3 genuineness, 710. 
Subject of the second part 
of the, 401,402. Its relation 
to St. Paul's Epistles, 402. 

Adasa, battle of, 41. 

Adramyttium, port of, C61. 

Adria, sea of, 570. 

Adultery, Christ's answer 
when appealed to in the 
case of the woman taken in, 
291. 

jElia Capitolina, name be- 
stowed upon new city of 
Jerusalem, 136. 

. , bishop of, mention of, 

137. 

jEnon, 216. 

Agabus, predicts a famine, 
433. Prophecies of, 539. 

Agora of Athens, Paul's dis- 
courses in the, 475. 

, situation of the, 476. 

Agrippa, Herod's friendship 
with, S4. 

• , name of, introduced into 



ALEXANDRA. 

family of Aristobulus, 84 
His connection with the 
Temple, 86. Joined by 
Herod, 87. 

" Agrippa, king," grandson of 
Herod, 9S. 

, St. Paul's defense before, 

411, 557, 559. St. Paul's 
mode of addressing him 
412. 

(see Herod Agrippa). 

'Ain et-Tabigah, 276. 
'Ain Yakub (see Well, Ja- 
cob's). 

Akiba, rabbi, armor-bearer to 
Bar-Cocheba, 135. 

Albinus, procurator of Judaea, 
123. His character and 
policy, 123. 

Alcimus, high-priest, courts 
Demetrius, 42. Death of, 
43. 

Alexander, bishop of Jerusa- 
lem, pilgrimage of, 137. 

, his conduct toward the 

Jews, 145. His desire for 
catholicity of worship, 146. 

, leader of a sect, 612, 617. 

, put forward by the Jews 

in the riot at Ephesus, 520. 

, son of Aristobulus II., 

prisoner of Pompey, 6S. 
Besieged by Gabinius, 68. 
Again revolts, 6". Killed, 
69. 

, son of Herod, education 

of, 84. Herod's jealousy of, 
S7. Death of, 89. 

, son of Simon, 329. 

, the brass-founder, 625, 

626. 

, the Great, interview of, 

with Zaddua, 15, 16. Death 
of, 17. His place in sacred 
history, 17, 18. 

, Balas, his claim to the 

crown of Syria, 43. Nomi- 
nates Jonathan to the high- 
priesthood, 43. Marries Cle- 
opatra, daughter of Ptole- 
my Philometer, 44. 

Jannaeus, wars of, G3. 

Death of, 64. 

, Tiberius, procurator of 

Judaea, 120. 

Alexandra, wife of Alexander 
Jannaeus, 64. 



ANDKOMAOHUS. 

Alexandra, daughter of Hyr« 
canus, 71. Her appeals to 
Cleopatra, 79. Death of, 82. 

Alexandria, persecution of the 
Jews in, under Caligula, 
110, 111. Jews in, 145, 146. 
Their share in literature, 
147. Literary school at, 
147. 

Alexandrian party in the Co- 
rinthian Church, the, 515, 
527. 

Alexandrians and Cyrenians 
representing the Jews of 
Africa, 391. 

Almond pool, the, 131. 

Alpheeus or Clopas, 191. 

, father of Matthew, 679, 

6S0. 

, James described as the 

son of, 2S2. 

Alypius of Antioch, 13S. 

Ambivius, M., procurator of 
Judaea, 107. 

Ammianus Marcellinus, narra- 
tive of, 138. 

Ananel, high - priest under 
Herod, 79. 

Ananias and Sapphira, the 
story of, 3S6, 387. 

Ananias sent to rescue Judaea, 
63. 

, his mission, 414, 415. 

, high-priest, Paul before, 

545, 546. Comes to Csesa- 
rea, to accuse Paul before 
Felix, 549. 

Ananus, high-priest, takes the 
lead in the defense of Jeru- 
salem against the Romans, 
126. 

, persecution by, allusion 

to in the Epistle to the He- 
brews, 599. 

■ ■ (see Annas). 

Anastasis, church of the, 13S. 

Auata, 340. 

Anathema, occurs frequently 
in the ancient canons, 652. 

Ancyra, city of, 464. 

Andrew, follows Christ, 209. 
Commanded by Christ to let 
down his nets, 234. Fin^l 
call of, 235, 236. Affection 
of, 261. 

, St., 663, 664. 

Andromachus, murder of, 17 



758 



Index. 



ANDKONIOUS. 

Andronicus, bribed by Merc- 
ians, 25. Put to death, 25 

. ,534. 

Angel, an, delivers the Apos- 
tles from prison, 3S7. 

" of the Church," 161. 

. , vision of an, at the sep 

ulchre, 349. 

Angels, at the Ascension, pre 
diet the Second Coming of 
the Lord, 357. 

, ministry of, to Jesus, 20G 

, the two, sitting in the 

sepulchre, 351. 

Anilai {see Asinai). 

Anna, daughter of Phanuel 
gives thanks for the advent 
of Christ, 186. 

Annas, Christ in the house of 
321. 

, high-priest, 107. 

or Ananus, high-priest 

123. His persecution of the 
Christians, 123. 

, high-priest at the time 

of John the Baptist's appear- 
ance, 199. 

, the high-priest, Peter 

and John before, 385. 

Annius Rufus, procurator of 
Judaea, 107. 

Annunciation, date of the, 181. 

Anointing of Christ, 266, 267. 

Anthony (.see Mark). 

Antichrist, mystery of, 615. 

Antigonus of Socho, 169. 

Socho, founder of new 

synagogue, 20. Writer of 
the Mishna, 20. Palestine 
governed by, 20. 

« , son of Aristobulus II. 

prisoner of Pompey, 68. Ks- 
capes, 69. Repulsed by Her- 
od, 70, 71. Marches upon 
Jerusalem, 71. Nominal 
sovereignty of, 71 . Besieges 
Massadn, 71, 72. Put to 
death, 72. 

. , son of John Ilyrcanus, 

50. Slain, 62. 

Antioch, becomes a centre of 
the Christian Church, 14S. 
First Gentile church formed 
at, and name of Christian 
first heard at, 430. The 
Gospel preached to the 
Greeks at, 431. Its situa- 
tion, 430. Paul and Barna- 
bas at, 432, 441, 442. Paul 
and Barnabas driven from, 
445. Return to, 447. Re- 
turn again to, 456. The 
church at, the Holy Spirit 
speaks to, 43(i. Christians 
of, send relief to Judaea at 
the time of the famine, 433. 

Antiochus Epiphanes, 14. 

i , king of Commagene, 118 . 

III., the Great, his war 



with Ptolemy IV., 22. Be- 
comes master of Ccelesyria 
and Palestine, 23. 

Antiochus IV. Epiphanes. ac 
cession and character of, 23 
His campaigns against 
Egypt, 25. Takes Jerusa 
lem, 25. His persecution 
of the Jews, 25-27. His 
death, 28. Resistance of 
the Jews to, 34-3S. 

V. Eupator, succeeds his 

father, 39. Dies, 40. 

VI. Theos, 45. 

VII. Sidetes, defeats Try 

phon, 47. Besieges Jerusa 
lem, 49. His moderation 
50. 

Antipas banished to Gaul 
115. 

Antipater, his war against 
Aristobulus II., 65, 66. Ap- 
pears before Pompey, 67 
Governs Judaea, 68. Made 
procurator, 69. Poisoned 
70. 

, sou of Herod, his enmity 

toward his brothers, S7, SS. 
Conspires against the life of 
his father, 89. Brought to 
trial, 89. Death of, 90. 

, son of Salome, pleads the 

cause of Antipas, 101. 

Antonio (see Baris). 

, burned at the time of 

Cestius Gallus, 125. 

, the, taken by the Ro- 
mans, 132. 

Appelles comes to Mattathias, 
34. 

Apio heads a Greek deputa- 
tion, 112. 

Apocalypse, date of the, 644. 

Apocalypsis, meaning of the 
word, 713. 

Apocrypha, the, 154. 

Apollonius, governor of Ccele- 
syria, 24. Sent to massacre 
the inhabitants of Jerusa- 
lem, 26, 27. Defeated by Ju- 
das Maccabaeus, 36. Fights 
against Jonathan, 45. 

Apollos of Alexandria, 148. 

and the Twelve Disciples 

who knew only the baptism 
of John, 503, 504. 

, his concord with Paul in 

the reproofs addressed to 
the Corinthians, 513. His 
teaching, 515, 516. 

Apostasy, the Great, men- 
tioned by St. Paul in his 
Second Epistle to the Thes- 
salonians, 615. 

Apostles, Twelve, choice of 
the, 256, 259. Character of 
their office, 260. Their per- 
sonal qualifications, 261. 
Lists of the, 262. Number 



of, corresponding to the 
twelve tribes of Israel, 261, 
262. Its symbolical mean 
ing,261. Attend Christ i;i 
his second circuit of Galilee, 
267. Sent forth on their 
mission, 270. Their success, 
270. Their solemn profes- 
sion of their faith in Christ, 
273. Their failure in heal- 
ing a case of demoniacal 
possession, 2T9. Contest 
among them for precedence, 
279. Disbelieve the news of 
the first appearance of Christ 
after the resurrection, 350, 
351. 

Apostles, the assembled, 
Christ's appearance to, 353. 
His second appearance to 
them with Thomas, 353, 354. 
His third appearance to 
them, 354. Not separated 
from the other disciples, 355. 
Admonished by the Holy 
Spirit to prepare the writ- 
ten records of the life of 
Christ, 367. Miracles of the, 
387. Their imprisonment 
and deliverance, 387. Be- 
fore the Sanhedrim, 387. 
Scourged, 388. Continue to 
teach and preach Jesus, 388. 

Appii Forum, the Christians 
meet Paul at, 580. 

Aquila of Pontus, 148. 
— and Priscilla, St. Paul 
takes up his abode with, 4S3, 
484. They incur the risk of 
martyrdom, 484. Sail with 
St. Paul from Cenchreae, 492. 
Remain at Ephesus, 493. 
Instruct Apollos, 503. At 
Rome, 534. At Ephesus, 
613. 

Arabia, St. Paul retires into, 
416. 

Archelaus, son of Herod the 
Great, 98. Named by Herod 
as his successor, 99. Suc- 
ceeds him, 99. His entry 
into the Temple, 100. Sets 
out for Rome, 100. Estab- 
lished in his government by 
Augustus, 100. Effect of his 
succession on the parents of 
Christ, 99, 100. Popular 
distrust of, 102. Marries 
Glaphyra, 102. Banished 
to Vienna, 102. 
— , accession of, 189. Depo- 
sition of, 199. 

Archippus, Epistle addressed 
to Philemon jointly with, 
590. 

Areopagus, discourse of *St. 
Paul at the, 476-479. 

Aretas, espouses the cause <A 
Hyrcanus II., 65, 



Index: 



'59 



Aretas, father-in-law of Herod 
Antipas, 103. Makes war 
upon him, 103. Seizes Da- 
mascus, 109. 

, his war with Herod, 403. 

St. Paul's escape from, 416. 

Aristseus, 147. 

Aristarchus seized by the 
Ephesians, 519. 

of the Thessalonians goes 

to Troas, 536. Accompanies 
St. Paul on his voyage to 
Rome, 561. Fellow-prisoner 
of Paul at Rome, 585. 

Aristeas, letter of, giving au 
account of the origin of the 
Septuagint, 152. 

Aristobulus I., son of John 
Hyrcanus, 50. Assumes the 
title of king, 62. 

II., defeats the Pharisees, 

65. Attacked by Antipater 
and Aretas, 65, 66. Offers 
bribes to Rome, 66. Taken 
prisoner by Pompey, 67. 
Again a prisoner of Rome, 
69. Murdered, 69. 

, grandson of Aristobulus 

II., 71. Death of, 79. 

, son of Herod, education 

of, 84. Herod's jealousy of, 
87. Death of, 89. 

, writings of, 1 47. 

Ark in the Synagogue, 160. 

Armenia, Jews in, 145. 

Artapanus, 147. 

Artemis, temple of, levelled 
with the ground through 
the agency of St. John, 662 
(see Diana). 

Ascension, Mount of the, 33S, 
339 

, the, 356, 357. 

Asceticism, Paul's argument 
against, 5S9. Opposition to, 
615, 616. 

Ashdod (see Azotus). 

Asia, St. Paul and his com- 
panions forbidden to preach 
the Gospel in, 462, 463. 
Diffusion of the Gospel in, 
505. 

■ Minor, St. Paul in, 462, 

463. Heresy in, 614. 

Asiarchs, the, 519. 

Asinai and Anilai, revolt of, 
114. 

Asrnons;an dynasty, 44, 45. 

family, table of the, 59. 

house, last ruler of the, 

71, 72. 

kingdom established by 

Aristobulus, 52. 

monarchy founded, 62. 

princes, 34. 

Asmonaeans, cruelty of Herod 

toward the, 78. 
Ass, the, fetched for Christ by 

the disciples, 304. 



BAKNABAS. 

Assidseans, the sect of, 35, 36 

Astarte, temple erected at Je 
rusalem to, 136. 

Athenseus, his persecution of 
the Jews, 27. 

Athenians, character of the, 
475. 

Athenobius, 48. 

Athens, Paul at. 474. 

, plan of, 477. 

, the sermon at, 478. 

, converts at, 4S0. 

Attalia, port of, Paul and Bar- 
nabas at, 447. 

Augustus, title of, S3. 

, Herod's sons brought be- 
fore, S7. His celebrated say- 
ing about Herod, 90. Her- 
od's legacy to, 99. Doath 
of, 107. 

, census made by, 184. 

Auranitis (see Ituraea). 

Azarias defeated bv Gorgias, 
38. 

Azotus (Ashdod), Philip at, 
39S. 

B. 

Babylon, First Epistle of Peter 
written from, 636. Jews at, 
636. Jews of the Dispersion 
at, 145. 

Bacchides, defeated by Judas 
Maccabaeus, 37. Sent to 
support Alcinus, 42. De- 
feats Judas, 42. Attacks 
Jonathan, 43. Fortifies Jer- 
icho, 43. Makes peace with 
Jonathan, 43. 

Bagoses, Persian satrap, 15. 

Baptism of John, whether a 
new institution, 200. Ac- 
cepted by the mass of the 
people, 201. 

of the Proselytes of Right- 
eousness, 150. 

, origin of, 150. Com- 
manded by Christ, S55. 

Barabbas. his release demand- 
ed by the people instead of 
that of Christ, 325, 326. 

Baradseus, Jacob, bishop of 
Edessa, 674. 

Bar-Cocheba, leader of the 
Jews under Hadrian, 135. 
Coins of, 136. 

Baris, tower of, 50. 

, fortress of the, S3. 

Bar-Jesus (see Elymas). 

Barnabas of Cyprus, 148. Self- 
sacrifice of, 386. Brings 
Saul to the Apostles, 417. 
Sent to Antioch, 431 . Seeks 
out Saul at Tarsus, 431. 
With Saul at Antioch, 432. 
Whether at Jerusalem at 
the time of the deliverance 
of Peter from prison, 432, 



EETU-HOBON. 

433. His mission to Jeru- 
salem, 433. Separated with 
Saul for the mission to the 
Gentiles, 436. One of the 
Apostles, 437. His first mis- 
sionary journey with Paul, 
437 (sec Paul) . Considered 
by the people at Lystra to be 
Jove, 446. His return jour- 
ney with Paul, 447, 44S. 
Separates from Paul, and 
go, s with John Mark to Cy- 
prus, 459. An Apostle, 683. 
His character and labors, 
6S3. Epistle of, 6S4. 

Barsabas, proposed with Mat- 
thias as an Apostle, 380. 

Bartholomew, call of, 209. His 
confession of Christ, 209. 
Supposed to be the Nathan- 
ael of St. John, 262, 679. 

Baruch, Book of, 156. 

Barzaphernes, Parthian com- 
mander, 71. 

Bashan, under Herod, 81. 

Basilica, the, erected on the 
spot where the cross is said 
to have been found, 137. 

Batansea, under Herod, 81. 

Baten el Hawa, 339. 

Bath and cradle of Jesus, 116. 

Bath-col, the, 203. Heard by 
Saul, 411. 

Batlanim, office of the, 162. 

Beatitudes. Mount of, the, 260. 

u Beautiful" gate, miracle at 
the, 354. 

Beit-lahm, town of, 195. 

Bel and the Dragon, 157. 

Bema, the, 124, 327. 

Benedictus, the, 182. 

"Berea," camp at, 42. 

Berenice, married to Aristo- 
bulus, son of Herod, 87. 

, sister of Herod Agrippa 

II., 119. 

(Tripoli), Jews at, 147. 

Bernice, sister of Agrippa, 556. 

Beroea, noble-mindedness of 
the Jews at, 473, 474. 

Bethabara, place of Christ's 
baptism, 216. 

Bethany, the family at, 296, 
297. Situation of, 297. 
Meaning of the name, 297 
The Sabbath spent at, 300 
Feast at, date of, 313. Christ 
leads his disciples to, 330. 
The Apostles led by Christ 
before his ascension to, 357. 
(See Bethabara.) 

Bethel, fortified by Bacchides, 
43. 

Bether, fortress of, defended 
by the Jews, 136. 

Bethesda, miracle at the pool 
of, 244, 245. 

Beth-horon, fortified by Bac- 
chides, 43. 



760 



Index. 



BETHLEHEM. 

Bethlehem, account of, 195. 
Birth of Christ at, 184. 
Massacre of the babes in, 90, 
91. Present church of, 195. 

Bothlehem-Judah (see Beth- 
lehem, account of). 

Bethphage, site of, 304. Mean- 
ing of the name, 30 i, 305. 

Bethsaida, position of, 209. 
Jesus repeats the doom of 
woe upon, 290. Site of (see 
Capernaum). 

Bethsura, town of, 37. Fo:t 
fied by Judas Maccabaeus, 
38. Besieged by Antiochus 
V., 39. 

Bezetha, suburb of, 116. 

Bir-el-Yakub (see Well, Ja- 
cob's). 

Bir es-Samariyeh (see Well, 
Jacob's). 

Birket Israil, 131. Considered 
to be the modern represent- 
ative of Bethesda, 244. 

Bishop, St. James's position 
equivalent to that of, 6T0. 

Bithynia, St. Paul forbidden to 
enter, 462, 463. 

Boanerges, surname of James 
and John, 262. Tiie name, 
657, 665. 

Bread, unleavened, day of, 
314, 315. 

Brethren of the Lord, 2S1, 2S2 

Britain, the evangelization of, 
623. 

Burrus, prefect of the Praeto- 
rian Guard, Paul delivered 
up to, 5S0. Death of, 5S7. 



c. 

Cabbala, the, 613. 

Cabi, made high-priest, 123. 

Caesar, assisted by Antipater, 
69. Julius, death of, 70. 

, Paul' s appeal to, 555. 

, the dues of, 30S, 309. 

, the Gospel known in the 

household of the, 594. 

Csesarea, city of, 83. Massa- 
cre of Jews by Felix at, 121. 
Paul at, 539. Tumult be- 
tween the Jews and the Sy- 
rian Greeks at, 551. Philip 
at, 398. Philip's ministry 
at, 690, 691. 

Caesarea-Philippi, city of, S4. 
Built by Herod Philip, 105. 
Christ at, 276. 

Daiaphas, Christ sent to, 321. 
Interrogates Christ, 322. 
High-priest at the time of 
John the Baptist's appear- 
ance, 199. House of, con- 
sultation of the Jews in the, 
312. 



CHARISMATA. 

Caiaphas, Joseph, high-priest, 

107. Deposed, 109. 
, the high-priest, his ar- 
gument for Christ's death, 
2J9. 

, the high-priest, Peter 

and John before, 385. 
Caligula, his favor toward 
Herod Agrippa, 104. Ban- 
ishes Pilate, 109. His con- 
flict with Judaism, 109, 110. 
His interview with the 
Jews, 112, 113. His death, 
114. Judaea under (see Ju- 
daea). 

Callirhoe, baths of, 89. 

Calvary, 329. 

Cana, marriage feast at, 209. 
Miracle at, 211, 212. Second 
visit of Christ to, 227, 22S. 
Site of, 209. 

Canaan, woman of (see Syro- 
Phceuician). 

Candace, queea of Ethiopia, 
397. 

uanon of Old Testament, 
when closed, 15, 20. Im- 
portance of Antiochian per 
secution in fixing the, 55. 
The Hebrew, commentaries 
upon, 151. 

Capernaum, Jesus appears at. 
233. Jesus repeats the doom 
of woe upon, 290. Marked 
out by prophecy as the chief 
scene of the Messiah's min- 
istry, 229. Return of Jesus 
to, 241. Site of, 214, 251 

Capharsalama, Nicanor defeat- 
ed at, 41. 

Cappadocia, Jews of, 145. 

Carpus, St. Paul leaves his 
books with, 625. 

Carthage, Council of, ratifies 
the Canon of the New Tes- 
tament, 700. 
;assius, governor of Syria, 70. 

u Castor and Pollux," the ship 
in which Paul emb irked 
from Malta, 578. 

Cenchreae, harbor of, 4S?. 
Paul's vow at, 492. Church 
at, 493. 

Cendebeus, 49. 

Census made at the time of 
the birth of Christ (see Cy- 
renius). 

Centurion, confession of the, 
335. Servant of the, healed, 
264. 

Cephas, faction of, in the Co- 
rinthian Church, 527 (see Pe- 
ter). 

Cestius Gallus, prefect of Sy- 
ria, 619. 

Cestrus, the river, 440. 

i lhaber, 166. 

Jhagigah, the, 324, 343. 
I Charismata, the, 162. 



Charoseth, the, 341. 

Chasidim (see Assidaeans). 

Chazzan, office of the, 161. 

Chelchias, sent to rescue Ju 
daea, 63. 

Children, Song of the Three, 
157. 

Chiliastic period of Apocalyp. 
tic interpretation, 723. 

Chloe, those of the house of, 
who bring bad news of the 
state of the Corinthian 
Church, 509. 

Chonse (see Colossae). 

Chorazin, Jesus repeats the 
doom of woe upon, 290. 
Site of (see Capernaum). 

Christ, bearing of Herod's acts 
and character on the coming 
of, 91, 92. Era of birth of, 
91. Sent before Herod An- 
tipater, 104. Antagonism of 
his preaching to the doc- 
trines of the Pharisees, 165, 
166. Birth of, 184. Pro- 
claimed to the shepherds, 

184, 1S5. Brought to the 
Temple and circumcised, 

185. Carried into Egypt, 

188. Brought to Nazareth, 

189. His childhood and 
youth, 189, 190. Goes to 
Jerusalem to keep the Pass- 
over, 189. Found in the 
Temple, 190. Teaches in 
the Synagogue at Nazareth, 

190. His abode at Nazareth 
till his thirtieth year, 191. 
His outer and inner life 
during this period, 191, 192. 
Baptism of, 201, 202. Place 
of the, 216. Proclaimed the 
son of God, 203. His temp- 
tation in the wilderness, 204- 
206. Resemblance between 
the forty days spent by him 
in the wilderness, and the 
forty days spent by Elijah 
at Horeb, and Moses on 
Mount Sinai, 203. Ministry 
of angels to, 206. At the 
marriage feast, 209, 210. 
His relations with Mary, 
210. His first miracle, 211, 
212. Conclusion of the 
more private opening of his 
ministry, 214. His short 
abode at Capemnum, 214, 
215. Beginning of his min- 
istry at Jerusalem at the 
Passover, 219. Purines the 
Temple, 220. His predic- 
tion concerning the temple 
of his body, 221. His con- 
verts at the Passover, 222. 
His reservein trusting them, 
222. Leaves Jerusalem for 
the country of Judaaa, and 
gathers converts, who are 



Index. 



761 



baptized by his disciples, 
223. Retires to Galilee, 224. 
His disciples at Sychar, 226. 
His reception in Galilee, 226. 
His rejection at Nazareth, 
226, 22T, 232, 233. Date of 
his public ministry in Gali- 
lee, 227. His second visit 
to Cana, 227. His second 
Galilean miracle, 227, 22S. 
Proclaims the kingdom of 
heaven as at hand, 231. 
Teaches in the synagogues, 
232. Proclaims himself as 
the Messiah, 232. His final 
call to Andrew and Peter, 
James and John, 235. Heal- 
ing of the demoniac, 236- 
23S. Healing of Peter's 
wife's mother, 238. His first 
circuit through Galilee, 239.! 
Cure of leprosy, 240, 241. j 
Returns to Capernaum, 241. 
Cures the paralytic, 242.! 
Claims the divine preroga-i 
tive of forgiving sin, 242. ] 
Performs various miracles, | 
243. Goes up to Jerusalem 
243. Heals the cripple at 
Bethesda, 244, 245. His first 
great doctrinal discourse, 
245-247. Asserts his su 
premacy ov« the Sabbath 
245, 24G. Claims his divin- 
ity, 245, 240. Scene of his 
ministry, 24S, 240; its du 
ration, 249, 250. The plot; 
against his life, 247. Sec 
ond period of his ministry 
in Galilee, 253. Defends his 
disciples for plucking corn 
on the Sabbath, 253, 254. 
Heals the man with the 
withered hand, 255. Plot of 
the Pharisees and Herodians 
against him, 255, 256. Re- 
tires to the shore of the Gali- 
lean lake, 255. His mira- 
cles there, 255. His prep- 
arations for organizing the 
Christian Church, 256. His 
choice of the Twelve Apos- 
tles, _5G, 257. His sermon on 
the Mount, 262-264. Heals 
the servant of the centurion, 

264. Restores the life of the 
son of the widow of Nain, 
234. His message to John 
the Baptist in prison, 265. 
His testimony to John, 265. 
Reveals himself as a judge, 

265. Anointed, 266, 267. 
Makes his second circuit of 
Galilee, 267. His contro- 
versy with the Pharisees, 
26S. Heals the blind and 
dumb demoniac, 268. The 
visit of his mother and breth - 
ren, 267. His parables, 268. 



Stills the storm, 263. Heals 
the man possessed of a le- 
gion of devils, 26S. His 
second rejection at Naza-j 
reth, 269. His third circuit; 
of Galilee, 269. Retires to 
a lonely spot on the lake,) 

271. His first miracle of! 
the loaves and fishes, 271.1 
Its effect on the Galileans,; 

272. The Galileans wish to 
make him King, 272. Walks) 
upon the water, 272. His 
controversy, in which the ; 
people desireanew sign,273. ) 
Watched by emissaries from 
Jerusalem, 274. Retires to: 
Phoenicia and the Decapolis, 
274. Heals the deaf and 
dumb, 274. His second mira- 
cle of the loaves and fishes, 
274. His encounter with the 
Pharisees, Sadducees, and 
Herodians, 275, 276. As- 
cends the Jordan to Caesa- 
rea-Philippi, 276. Demands 
full confession of faith from 
the disciples, 276. The 
" chief corner-stone " of the 
Church, 277. Reveals to the 
disciples the mystery of his 
death and resurrection, 277. 
His transfiguration, 278, 279. 
Renewed prediction cf his 
passion, 279. His last re- 
turn - to Capernaum, 279. 
Sets a little child in the 
midst of the Apostles, 2S0. 
His ensuing discourse, 2S0. 
His final departure from 
Galilee, 2S0. Challenged by 
his brethren to show him- 
self in Judaea, 289. His 
journey through Samaria 
and rejection there, 290. Ex- 
pectation concerning, 290.1 
Appears at the Feast of 
Tabernacles, teaching in the 
Temple, 290, 291. Pro- 
claims himself the giver of 
the water of life, 291. The 
attempt to arrest him, 291. 
His decision in the case of 
the woman taken in adul- 
tery, 292. Another contro- 
versy with the Pharisees, 
292. The witness to, 292. 
Attempt to stone him, 293. 
Heals the man blind from 
his birth, 293, 294. Declares 
himself the Light of the 
World, 293. Represents 
himself as the Good Shep- 
herd, 295. At the Feast of 
the Dedication, 295. Jews 
again attempt to stone him, 
2'.i5. Retires to Bethabara,) 
295. Raises Lazarus from 
the dead, 295, 29G. In the[ 



home at Bethany, 297. 
Council held concerning, 
29S. Withdraws to Eph- 
raim, 298. His return to- 
ward Jerusalem, 299. His 
denunciation of Herod, 299. 
His progress through Peraea, 

299. 300. Warns his disci- 
ples for the third time of 
his passion, death, and res- 
urrection. 299. Recrosses 
the Jordan to Jericho, 300. 
Heals the two blind men, 

300. Conversion of Zac- 
chaeiis, 300. Spends the 
Sabbath at Bethany, 300, 

301. Prepares to present 
himself in the "Temple at 
Jerusalem, 304. His recep- 
tion at Jerusalem, 305, 306. 
His character as king, 305. 
Returns to Bethany, 306. 
His second cleansing of the 
Temple, 306, 307. The last 
day of his public teaching, 
307-312. Inculcates faitb 
and mutuulforgiveness, 307. 
Asks the chief priests and 
scribes whether the baptism 
of John was from heaven or 
of man, 308. His parables 
concerning their rejection of 
him, 30S. Devices to en- 
trap him, 30S, 309. An- 
swers the Sadducees con- 
cerning the Resurrection, 
30S. His great command- 
ment, 309, 310. Questions 
the Pharisees, 310. His de- 
nunciation of the Scribes and 
Pharisees, 310, 311. His 
lamentation over Jerusalem, 
311. His praise of the poor 
widow, 311. His final de- 
parture from the Temple, 
311. His prophecy of the 
destruction of Jerusalem and 
of the end of the world, 312. 
Tells his disciples the time 
of his betrayal, 313. Eats 
the Paschal Supper with 
them, 314-317. Washes the 
feet of the disciples, 316. 
Reveals the treachery of 
Judas, 317. Announces that 
his hour is come, 317. His 
commandment that they 
should love one another, 317. 
His prediction about Peter, 

317, 318. Appoints to meet 
the disciples in Galilee after 
his resurrection, 318. His 
last discourse and interces- 
sory praver, 31S. Goes out 
to the Mount of Olives, 318. 
His agony in the garden, 

318, 319. Surrenders him- 
self into the hands of the 
officers sent to take him, 



762 



Index. 



820. In the house of Annas, 
321. Sent to Caiaphas, 321 . 
Interrogated by him, 322. 
Arraigned before the San- 
hedrim, 322. Hisdemeaiioi 
throughout his trials, 322, 
3'23. Avows himself the 
Christ, the Son of God, 323. 
Brought before Pilate, 324. 
325. Sent by him to Herod 
Antipas, 325. Yielded up 
by Pilate to the people, 326. 
Handed over to the Roman 
soldiers, 326. Pilate's last 
effort to save him, 326, 327. 
Sentence pronounced upon 
him by Pilate, 327. His 
crucifixion (see Crucifixion). 
His saying.-* from the cross. 
330, 334. Confides his 
mother to John, 333. Por- 
tents following his death, 

334. 335. Found already 
dead, 335. His side pierced, 

335. Testimony of St. John, 

336. Care of Pilate to as- 
certain the truth of his 
death, 336. His burial, 336. 
His first appearance after 
the resurrection, 350. His 
second appearance, 351. His 
third appearance, 352. His 
fourth appearance, 352, 3. r :3. 
His fifth appearance, 353. 
His sixth appearance, 353, 

354. His seventh appear- 
ance, 354. His command to 
Peter and prediction of his 
martyrdom, 354. His eighth 
appea ranee, to the great body 
of his disciples, 354, 355. 
His commission to them, 

355. His ninth appearance, 
355. His last interview with 
the Apostles and his ascen- 
sion, 356-358. The prophe- 
cy of his second coming, 357. 
The destruction of Jerusa- 
lem completes the first ad- 
vent of, 646. Prophecies of. 
646, 647. The epoch of the 
fall of Jerusalem the type of 
his second coming, 649. 
Account of his resurrection 
(nee Resurrection). First 
disciples of, 20S. Genealogy 
of 192-194. Date of his 
birth, 194, 195. Life of. 
chronology of, 358, 359. Ti- 
tles of, given by John the 
Baptist, 207 ; by Nathanael, 
209. 

Christi, Spina (see Rhamnus). 

Christian Church, prepara- 
tions for organizing the, 
256. Name of, first heard 
at Antioch, 430, 432. 

Christianity, corruptions of, 
613, 614 Establishment of, 



at the epoch of the fall of 
Jerusalem, 644-650. 

Christianity in Europe, date of 
its introduction, 45S. Influ- 
ence of the dispersion on the 
promulgation of, 148. Prose- 
lytism of the Pharisees pav- 
ing the way for the diffusion 
of, 168. 

Christians depart from Jeru- 
salem before the siege, 129. 
Persecuted by Nero, 620. 
First general persecution of 
the, 621. Persecution of the, 
by Annas, 123. 

, Asiatic, desertion of the, 

624. 

Chronological Tables of New 
Testament History, 725- 
756. 

Chrysostom, writings of, con- 
cerning Paul's journey to 
Spain, 623. 

Church, Alexandrine, 146. 

, Christian, acting as a 

court of arbitration, 164. 
Beginning of the, 208. Be- 
ginning of positive institu- 
tions in the, 3SS, 389. Gen- 
eral persecution of the, 396. 
Its position at the death of 
Tiberius, 399. Worship of, 
similar to that of the Syna- 
agogue, 162. 

, establishment of the, 

644. 



COKINTH. 

Cilicians, mention of the, in 
the controversy between 
Stephen and the Hellenistic 
Jews, 391. 

Clauda, island of, 565. 

Claudia, conversion of, 626; 
her supposed Rritish origin, 
626. 

Claudius, accession of, 115, 
His edict for the toleratior; 
of the Jewish religion, 115. 
His policy in the East, 117. 
118. Banishes the Jews from 
Rome, 121. Death of, 495. 

Clemens of Rome, 153. 

Clement at Rome, his writings 
concerning the persecution 
of the Christians, 622. Con- 
cerning Paul's journey to 
Spain, 622, 623. 

Clementines, the, 634. 

Cleobius, 399. 

Cleodemus or Malchas, 147. 

Cleopas, Christ's appearance 
to, 352, 353. 

Cleopatra married to Ptolemy, 
23. Her relations with Her- 
od, 79. 

Cloisters of the Temple of Her- 
od, 94, 95. 

Clopas, 516. (See Alphseus.) 

Cnidus passed by Paul on his 
voyage to Rome, 562. 

Ccelesyria, the dowry of Cleo- 
patra, 23. 

Coins of Simon, 57, 58. 



— of Christ, full establish- Collections for the p^or in the 
merit of the, in the Holy| Christian Church, 501, 502. 
Land, etc., recorded in the Colossa?, the Church at, 507. 



Acts of the Apostles, 378. 
Foundation of the, 378. Two 
sections of the primitive, 
379. The great body of be 
lievers first seen in public 
as, 379. Modeled on the 
Jewish congregation, 379. 

— of the Sepulchre of the 
Virgin, 338. 

— , Primitive, four elements 
in the daily life of the, 383. 
State of the, 384. United 
Christian prayer in the, 385. 

— , moral corruption in the, 
618. 



Colossians, Epistle to the, writ- 
ten at Rome, 586. Its con- 
tents, 5S7-589. Corruption 
from Judaism, 58S. Su- 
preme headship of Christ 
588. 

Community of goods in the 
Primitive Church, 386. 

Conception, the miraculous, 
180, 182, 183. 

Constantine destroys the Tem- 
ple of Astarte at Jerusalem, 
137. 

Converts, the three thousand, 
on the Day of Pentecost, 



— , the whole, at Jerusalem, 

discusses the great question ,Coponius, procurator of Ju- 

raised by the Judaizing] daea, 106, 107. 

spirit, 450, 451. jCorban, Pilate's appropria- 

— , assembly of the, 451. tion of the, 108. 

Decision of the, 451. Its' ,the,following the baptism 

significance, 455. The As-| of proselytes, 150. 
sembly wrongly called th^Corbulo, Domitius, prefect of 
First Council. 455. Syria, 551-555. 

Churches of Judaea and Gali- Corinth, its importance in the 



lee and Samaria, rest and 
prosperity of, 419. 
Cilicia, Paul and Silas visit, 
459. Province of, at the 
time of St. Paul, 404 



history of Paul, 48 1. The 
old Greek city and the new 
Roman colony, 482. Its pop- 
ulation of Greeks, Romans, 
and Jews. 482. St. Paul at, 



Index. 



763 



CORINTHIAN CHURCH. 

530. St. Paul at, after his 
first imprisonment, 618. 

Corinthian Church, opposition 
party to Paul in the, 527. 
State of the, 508, 509, 515. 

Corinthians, many of them be- 
lieve and are baptized, 4SS. 

, First Epistle to the, 509. 

Its date and place, 512. 
Contents and spirit of the, 
516-518. 

, Second Epistle to the, 

date of the, 523. Question 
of an intermediate Epistle, 
524. Character and con- 
tents of the, 525. 

Cornelius, conversion of, 396, 
399. Mission of St. Peter 
to, 428, 429. 

Costabaras, husband of Sa- 
lome, 82. 

Cotys, king of the Lessor Ar- 
menia, 118. 

Council held concerning 
Jesus, 29S. 

, the First General, 

Assembly at Jerusalem, 
wrongly so-called, 456. 

Councils, the, 163. 

Covenant, New (see Testa- 
ment). 

, division of the history of 

the, ITT. 

., Old, sacrifice of the, 315. 

Crassus pillages the Temple, 
69. 

Crete, connection of Titus 
with, 694-606. Moral cor- 
ruption at, 618. Paul at, 
after leaving Rome, 611. 

Crio, Cape (.see C aid us). 

Cripple, healing of the, at 
Bethesda, 244, 245. 

Crispus, the baptism of, 433. 

Cross, form of the, used in 
crucifixion, 344. 

, St. Andrew's (see Crux 

decussata). 

, St. Anthony's (see Crux 

commissa). 

Crucifixion, account of the, 
329-334. Manner of the, 
329, 330. Place of the, 330. 
Time of the, 331. Sayings 
of Christ during the, 331- 
334. Portents following the, 
334, 335. 

, among the Romans, man- 
ner of, etc., 344, 345. 

Crux, commissa, the, 344. 

, decussata, the, 344. 

, immissa, the, 344. 

Cumanus Ventidius, procura- 
tor of Judaea, 120. 

Cypros, mother of Herod, TO. 

Cyprus, Barnabas and Saul 
at, 43S, 430. Settlement: 
of Jews in, 145. 

Cyrene, Jews at, 14T. 



Cyrenians and Alexandrians, 
representing the Jews of 
Africa, 391. 

Cyrenius and the Census, 105. 

(see Quirinius). 



D. ^ 

Dalmanutha, 275. 
Damaris, conversion of, 480. 
Damascus, Jews numerous at, 

403. 

— , St. Paul's ministry at, 

415, 410. 
Daniel, book of, 54. Visions 

of, 54. 
David, son of, Christ comes as 

the, 304. 
David's son, how is Christ at 

once, and Lord, 310. 
Deacons, the seven men 

called, 690, 691. 

— , appointment of the, 390. 

Their zeal, 390. 
Decapolis, multitudes drawn 

by the fame of Christ's 

teaching and miracles from, 

239. Under Herod, 82. 

What consisting of, 276. 
Dedication, Feast of the, 37 

see Feast). 
Demas, companion of Paul in 

his imprisonment at Rome, 

535. .Apostasy of, 62S. 
Demecrius, 147. 
, leader of the party at 

Ephesus against the teach- 
ing of Paul, 518. 
, Eucaerus, king of Syria, 

64. 
-I., Soter, becomes king, 

4i. Supports Alcimus, 42. 

His overtures to the Jews, 

43, 44. His death, 44. 
Demetrius II., Nicator, ncce - 

sion of, 45. 
Demoniac, healingof the, 236- 

239. 
, the blind and dumb, 

healed, 26S. 

, the Gadarene, 269. 

Demoniacal possession, ques 

tion of, 236, 237. 
Demoniacs, account of, 236 

237. Healingof many, 239 
Derash, the, 163. 
Derbe, Paul and Barnabas at 

446, 447. 

, site of, 446. 

Diadem, origin of the, 62. 
Diana, worship of, at Ephesus, 

518, 519. 
Dicaearchia (see Puteoli). 
Didrachm, the, value of, 279. 
Dionysius, the Areopagite, 

conversion of, 4S0. 
Disciples of Christ, first, 207 



Effect of the first miracle 
upon them, 213. 

Disciples, the, Christ give3 
them their first commission 
to begin their work, 317. 
Their voyage across the 
lake, 272. Some of them for- 
sake Christ, 273. Develop- 
ment of their faith, 276. 
Its full profession, 2T6. 

, three descend with Jesus 

to the world beneath, 2T9. 

-, Seventy, sent forth by 

Christ during his progress 
through Samaria, 2S9, 290. 

, the, raise the question 

at the Last Supper as to 
which of them should be the 
greatest in the kingdom of 
which Christ had spoken, 
316. 

, at the Last Supper, 516- 

318. Christ comforts them, 
31S. 

, flee when Christ is taken 

by the officers of the Tem- 
ple, 320. Re-assemble after 
their dispersion, and look 
forward to the third day, on 
which Jesus had foretold his 
resurrection, 337, 333. 

, Christ's appearance to 

the great body of his, 154, 
355. 

, apostles not separated 

from the other, 355. 

Discourse, doctrinal, Christ's 
first great, 245-247. 

Dispersion, African, the, 147. 

, Eastern, Jews of the. 

036. 

- — , origin cf the, 144. Ex- 
tent of the, 145. 

, restoration of privileges 

to Jews of the, 87. 

, the, its influence on the 

promulgation of Christian- 
ity, 14S. 

Divinity of Christ asserted by 
himself in his first great dis- 
course, 245, 246. 

, asserted about the trib- 
ute-money, 279. 

Dor (see Dora). 

Dora, city of, 4S. 

Dorcas, the raising of, 427, 
428. 

Doris, wife of Herod. S7. 

Dositheus, 399. 

Drusilla, sister of Herod 
Agrippa II., 120, 121. 

, wife of Felix, 549, 551. 

Duratiou of our Lord's minis- 
try, 249, 250.. 

Duumviri or praetors, Paul 
and Silas before the, 46S. 






764 



Index. 



E. 

Eagle, Golden, affair of tbe, 

eg 

" Easter Day," 303, 348. 

Easter Eve, 337. 

Ecclesia, Christian, the ; its or- 
ganization resembling that 
of the synagogue, 162. 

Ecclesiasticus, Book of, 156. 

Edessa, Church of, 675. 

, Petrine tone in Christian 

school at, 636. 

Egypt, campaigns of Anti- 
ochus against, 25. 

El-'Azariyeh, or Lazarieh, 
297. 

Elders, appointment of, as peiv 
manent officers, 448. 

, college of, 161. 

" Eleasa," camp at, 42. 

Eleazar, a chief scribe, mar- 
tyrdom of, 27. 

, high-priest, 21. 

, made high-priest, 102. 

-, leads the seditious party 

in the Temple at the time 
of Floras, 125. 

, heads, with John of Gis- 

cala, a party in Jerusalem, 
128, 

, son of Mattathias, 34. 

His self-devotion, 39. 

Eleven, the, receive the 
tidings of the first appear 
ance of Christ after the res- 
urrection, 350. The special- 
ly appointed witnesses of 
Christ's resurrection, 354, 
355. 

u Eli," considered by the peo- 
ple as a call for the prophet 
333. 

Eliashib, the high-priest, 15. 

Elijah appears in the Trans- 
figuration, 278, 279.' Christ 
affirms his having already 
come in the person of John 
the Baptist, 279. Prophecy 
of 1 lis coming, 92. 

El-Isawiyeh, 340. 

Elizabeth, mother of John the 
Baptist, ISO, 181. Visited 
by Mary, 18?. 

El-Medjel, 268. 

Elohim, how construed in He- 
brew and Samaritan Penta- 
teuchs, 153. 

Ely mas, the sorcerer, St. Paul's 
judgment on, 439. 

Emmanuel, Isaiah's prophecy 
concerning the birth of, ful- 
filled, 184. 

Emmaus, fortified by Bac- 
chides, 43. 

, the journey to, ?52. 

Fngedi, wilderness about, John 
the Baptist in the, 199. 



ET-TABIGHAII. 

En-Nazirah (see Nazareth). 

Enoch, book of, 54. 

Epaphras, fellow-prisoner of 
Paul at Rome, 5S5. His 
teaching in Colossse, 581. 

Epaphroditus, bearer of the 
Epistle to the Philippians, 
5S6, 5S7. Whether the 
same as Epaphras, 5SS. 
Brings the contributions of 
the Christians at Philippi to 
Paul at Home, 594. 

Ephesian Church, state of the, 
as shown in the Epistles to 
Timothy, 613, 614. Church 
organization, 612. Heresies 
in the, 613. 

elders, Paul's discourse to 

the, 537. 

, Epistle to the, written at 

Rome, 586, 592, 594. Points 
in common with the Colos- 
sians, 592. Its special and 
sublime teaching, 592, 593. 
Question as to whether it 
was really written to the 
Ephesians, 602-606. 

Ephesus, Paul at, 503. The 
church of, 503. Riot at, 
raised by Demetrius, 518- 
521. Paul's labors at, after 
leaving Rome, 610. Fac- 
tious opposition against Paul 
at, 612. Paul probably ar- 
rested at, 624. Paul's voy- 
age to, 493. St. John at, 
661. 

, the centre of the active 

life of Eastern Christendom 
after tbe destruction of Je- 
rusalem, 70S. 

Ephrath (see Bethlehem). 

Epicureans, Paul encountered 
by the, 475. 

Epimenides, verses of, 619. 

Epistles, the seven Catholic or 
general, 713-719. 

Equites (see Publicans). 

Erastus, chamberlain of Cor- 
inth, 530. 

, his mission to Macedo- 
nia and Achaia, 507, 508. 

Esdras, first book of, 155. 
Second book of, 1 55. 

Essenes, name of the, 171. 
Their organization and doc- 
trines, 172, 173. Their set- 
tlements, 173. Under Her- 
od, 84, 91. 

Essenism, tendency toward, 
82. 

Esther, book of, 155. 

Ethiopian eunuch, conversion 
of the, 397, 398. Date of 
the, 3S9. 

Ethnarch, title of, given to 
Archelaus, 102. 

Et-Tabighah (see Capernaum, 
site of>. 



Et-Taiyibeh (see Epbraim). 

Eubulus, conversion of, 626. 

Eunice, mother of Timothy, 
460. 

Eupolemus, sent to Rome, 41, 
147. 

Euroclydon, the, 564 

Europe, St. Paul's call to, 464, 
465. 

Eutychus, restored to life, 537. 

Evangelists, inspiration of the, 
370, 371. 

, the first three, their Gal- 
ilean sources of information, 
220, 229, 230. Their inspi- 
ration, 230. 

, the four, gospels of, 178. 

, the term, 684. 

Ezekiel, tragedy of, 147. 

"Ezra, the Apocalypse of," 
155. 

Ezra the scribe, 173. 



F. 

Fadus, Cuspins, procurator o: 
Judaea, 120. 

Fair Havens, Paul at, 563. 

Faith, demand of Christ f>-r, 
231. Moral power of Christ's 
miracles chiefly shown in 
exciting and rewarding, 
243. 

Famine in Judaea, relieved by 
the Christians of Antioch, 
433. 

Fast, Great Jewish, at the 
time of Paul's voyage to 
Rome, 563. 

Feast given by Matthew, 242. 

of Tabernacles, approach 

of tbe, 2S9, 290. Christ ap- 
pears at the, 291. Last day 
of the, 291. 

of the Dedication, Christ 

at the, 295. 

of the Jews, when Jesus 

went up to Jerusalem, 243. 

Felix, Procurator of Judsea, 
121, 122. His treatment of 
St. Paul, 122. 

, governor of Judaea, des- 
potism of, 494. Paul sent 
to, 54S. His treatment of 
Paul, 548-551. Recalled to 
Rome, 551. 

Fellowship In the primitive 
Church, 3S4. 

Fenius Rufus, 595. 

Festus Porcius, procurator of 
Judaea, 122, 551. His judg- 
ment on St. Paul, 122. 
Paul's defense before him, 
554, 555. Promises to send 
Paul to Caesar, 556. 

Fig-tree, parable of the bar- 
ren, 26S, 306, 307. 



Index. 



765 



FL0KU6. 

Florus, Gessius, procurator of 
Judaea, 123-125. 

Fortuuatus, with others, car- 
ries the epistle to the Co- 
rinthians, 512, 513. 

Fountain of the Virgin at 
Nazareth, 19G, 197. 

Friday, Good, 322. 

Furcifer, the term, 345. 



G. 

Gaba, fortress of, under Herod. 
83. 

Gabbatha, 327. 

Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, 
68, 09. 

Gabriel appears to Zacharias, 
180. Appears to Mary, ISO, 
181. 

Gadara, Christ's miracle in, 
269. Tombs of, 269. Made 
a Roman town, 102. 

Gaius, baptism of, 4SS. Seized 
by the Ephesians, 519. Paul 
the guest of, 530. 

of Derbe, goes to Tioas, 

536. 

Galaaditis, extent of, under 
Herod, 81. 

Galatia, churches of, 464. Ju- 
daizing teachers in the, 502, 
503. Journey of Paul 
through, 402, 463. 

Galatians, St. Paul's Epistle to 
the, refuting the Judaizing 
heresy, 503. Date of, 503. 
504. 

Galilean cities, denunciation 
of the, 265. 

, Jesus repeats the doom 

of woe upon, 290. 

Galileans, liberty of the Gos- 
pel proclaimed to them first, 
229. Wish to make Jesus 
king, 272. 

Galilee, account of, 251. Be- 
ginning of Christ's public 
ministry in, 228, 229. 
Christ's appearance to the 
Apostles after his resurrec- 
tion by the lake of, 354. 
Christ's first circuit through, 
239. Christ makes his 
second circuit of, 267. Christ 
retires to, 225, 226. His re- 
ception in, 226. Christ's 
second period of ministry in, 
253. Christ's third circuit 
of, 269. 

, Christians of, 379. 

■ , extent of, under Herod, 

81. 

, inhabitants of, despised 

by the people of Judaea, 1C6. 

• of the Gentiles, light of 

the Gospel revealed amid 



GLAVHYRA. 



GKEEKS. 



the darkness of, 477. Ori-! der, son of Herod, 87. 

gin of the name, 233, 234,! Married to Archelaus, 102. 

251. Gnostic philosophy in the 

Galilee, reduced by Vespasian, | Church at Colossas, 58S, 589. 

127. : Gnosticism, 651. Alliance be- 
, Sea of, Christ at the,| tween Judaism and, 613. 

233. Description of, 233, , Simon as a teacher of, 

234. I 399. 

(see Viri Galilaei). , teaching of, 617. 

— , submits to John Hyr- God, Unknown, the altar at 

canus, EO. | Athens to, 478. 
-, the scene of Christ's ap-'Golden House, the, of Nero, 

pearance to the great body! 620. 

of his disciples, 354, 355. " j Golgotha, 329. 
Gamaliel, grandson of Hillel, Gorgias marches agaiust the 

175. I Jews, 36. Defeats them, 38. 

- — , his advice to the Council, Gorpiaeus at the siege of Jeru- 

387, 38S. The teacher of I salem, 134. 

St. Paul, 405. Contrast of Gospel harmony, difficulties 

his solitary appearance inj of, 226, 227. Concerning 

the Acts with the course 



chosen by St. Paul, 345. 
His counsels of toleration, 
407. 

Garments of Christ, divided 
among the soldiers, 331. 

"Gate, Beautiful," the, 95. 

"Gate, Water," the, 95. 

Gaulonites, under Herod, 81. I 

Gaza made a Roman town, 
102. 

Gazara, 48, 49. 

Gazzith, the hall, 74. 

Gemara, the, 151, 251. 

Genealogy of Christ (see 
Christ). 

Gennesareth, Sea of (see Gali- 
lee). 

Gentile Church, first, formed 
at Antioch, 430. 

converts, emancipation of 

the, declared by the Church 
at Jerusalem, 454. 

, the first, 428. 

Gentiles, first formal declara- 
tion that the offer of salva- 



the interval in our Lord's 
life between the Feast of 
Tabernacles and the Pass- 
over, 296. 

history, beginning of the, 

according to the four Evan- 
gelists, 178. 

— narrative, a break in the, 
314. 

— proclaimed to the shep- 
herds, 1S4, 1S5. 

Gospels, the four, their gen- 
uineness, 36 J. Their, rela- 
tion to each other, 360-363. 
The language in which they 
are written, 362. Theories 
of their origin, 363-366. 
Probability that they were 
based on apostolic preach- 
ing, 366-370. Harmony of 
the, 361, 362, 369, 371, 372. 
Their inspiration, 370, 371. 
Table of the harmony of the, 
373-376. 

, writers of the, when 

styled Evangelist?, 6S4. 



tion, rejected by the Jews, Grave-clothes, order of the, 

was handed over to them, j 350. 

442,444. jGraves, opening of the, after 
, the mission to the, 436, 1 the Crucifixion, 335. 

437. Greek becomes a universal 

Gerizim, temple of, profaned, language in Western Asia, 

26. Temple at, 141, 142. | 21. 

Gessius Florus in Judaea, 619. | Empire in Asia, 14. 

Gethsemane, description of, of the New Testament, 

338. j the, 699, 700. 
, Garden of, Christ's ago- Greeks at Antioch, the Gospel 

ny in the, 318, 319. j preached to the, 430. 
, situation and size of, in the Roman Church, 

318. I 533. 

Gezer or Gazer (see Gazara). of Caesarea, under Felix, 

Gilead, strongholds of, taken] 122. 

by Judas Maccabaeus, 37. or Grecians in the Church 

Giscala, John of, son of Levi, (see Hellenists). 

escapes to Jerusalem, 126. 1 , St. John's relation of the 

Heads a party at Jerusalem, j coming of certain, 311. 

128. His. defense of Jerusa- 
lem, 131,132, His flight, 134. 
Glaphyra married to Alexan- 



766 



Index. 






H. 

Hadrian, revolt of the Jews 
under, 135, 13G. Razes the 
ruins lefc by Titus to the 
ground, 136. 

Haemus, clans of, 466. 

Hagiographa, the, 54 

Hak ed-damm, 328. 

Hallel, cup of the, 342. 

" Hallel, Great," the, 318. 

Hallel, the, 342, 343. 

Handel, oratorio of, 42. 

Ilaphtaroth, the, 161. 

Hauran, desert of the, SI. 

Headship of Christ, the, 538 
5S9, 592. 

Heathenism, state of, at the 
time of St. Paul, 456. 

Heathens, Paul's first dis- 
course to mere, 446. 

Hebrews, Epistle to the, writ- 
ten at the close of Paul's 
first imprisonment, 596. In- 
ternal proofs of Pauline au- 
thorship, 597, 598. Allu- 
sions to the persecution by 
Ananus, 599. Indications 
of time and place and of the 
writer's intentions, 598-600. 
The writer is contemplating 
a visit to Jerusalem, 601, 
602. Its canonical authori- 
ty, 711. Its authorship, 712. 
To whom sent, 712. Time 
and place at which it was 
written, 712. Language in 
which it was Avritten, 713. 
Condition of the Hebrews 
and scope of the Epistle, 713. 

in the Church, 3SS. 

Their dissensions with the 
Hellenists, 389. 

Hebron, reduced by Judas Mac- 
cabaeus, 39. 

Hegesippus, his tradition re- 
specting St. James, 671. 

Heifer, red, ceremony of the 
burning of the, 340. 

Helcias, treasurer of the 
Temple, heads an embassy 
to Rome, 5S1. 

U-elena, mother of Constan- 
tine, visits Palestine, 137. 

, palace of, burned, 134. 

, queen of Adiabene, im- 
ports corn into Jerusalem, 
120. 

, tomb of, 120. 

, the Empress erects a sa- 
cred house on the Mount of 
Olives, 339. 

■, with Simon Magus, 400. 

Heliodorus, attempt of, to seize 
the treasures of the Temple, 



Hellenism,innuences of, 21, 22. 

Hellenistic Jews, Stephen's 
controversy with the, 391. 

Hellenists in the Church, 329. 
Their dissensions with the 
Hebrews, 388. 

, Syrian Jews become, 145. 

Hellenizing tendency at Alex- 
andria, 145-147. 

Heresies in the Church, 013- 
617. 

Heresy, the term, 165. 

Heretics, St. Paul's command 
to Titus to deal firmly with, 
617. 

Hermogenes, desertion of the 
Asiatic Christians, led by, 
624. 

Hermon, Mount, whether the 
scene of the Transfiguration, 
2S6. 

Herod Agrippa I., charges his 
uncle with treason, 104. 

, grandson of Herod the 

Great, uses his influence for 
the Jews, 114. Made gov- 
ernor of Tiberias, 115. Fa- 
vor of Caligula toward, 115. 
Receives Judaea from Clau- 
dius, 91. His visit to the 
Temple, 115, 116. His mur- 
der of St, James, 116. So- 
licits the recall of Vibius? 
Marsus, US. His death, 118. 

iking of Judaea, beheads 

James and imprisons Peter, 
431. His death, 432. 

Agrippa II., made a te- 

trarch, 119. Succeeds to the 
government of the Temple, 
119. His connection with 
St. Paul, 119. Comes into 
collision with the Jews at 
Jerusalem, 122. Seeks to 
calm the people, 125. 

Antipas, sou of Herod the 

Great, marries Herodias, 98. 
First named by Herod as his 
successor, 99. Made te- 
trarch, 99. His position 
confirmed by Augustus, 99. 
His importance derived from 
his appearance as the hearer 
and murderer of John the 
Baptist, and as taking part 
in the condemnation of our 
Lord, 102, 103. His char- 
acter, 104. Banished by 
Caligula, 104. Sends for 
John the Baptist, 223. Im- 
prisons him, 224. Orders 
the execution of John the 
Baptist, 265. Jesus brought 
before, 325. Believes Jesus 
to be John restored to life, 
270. 

" , king," grandson of 

Herod the Great, 9S. 



IIESHBON. 

Herod, king of Chalcis, 118. 

, ruler of the house of, 14. . 

, son of Antipater, made 

governor of Galilee, 69, 70. 
Made governor of Coelesyria, 
70. Madetetrarch, 71. De- 
feats Antigouus, 71. Made 
king of Judaea, 71. Besieges 
Jerusalem, 72; Established 
on the throne of Judaea and 
surnamed the Great, 78. 
His policy, 78, 79. Sum- 
moned by Mark Antony, 79. 
His campaign against Mal- 
chus, 80. Secures the favor 
of Octavian, 80. Extent of 
his kingdom, 81, 82. Ordera 
the execution of his wife, S2. 
Institutes Greek and Roman 
customs, 82. Builds Caesa- 
rea, 83, 84. His sons, 84. 
Friendship with Agrippa, 
84. Courts the people of 
Greece, 84. Restores the 
Temple, 85, 86. His jeal- 
ousy of his sons, 87, 88. An- 
tipater conspires against his 
life, 88. His illness, 89. 
Orders the massacre of the 
babes, 90. His death, 90. 
His character, 91. Bearing 
of his acts and character on 
the coming of Christ, 92, 93. 

, family of, 98, 99. 

, temple of, 94-96. 

, will of, 99. Funeral of, 

100, 101. 

, the tetrarch (see Herod 

Antipas). 

Philip, son of Herod the 

Great, marries Herodias, 98. 
Excluded from benefit of his 
father's will, 99. Pleads the 
cause of Archelaus, 101. 

Herods, ancestry of the, 77. 

Herod's fears at the birth of 
Christ, 187-189. Commands 
the massacre of the male 
children, 188. His death, 
188. 

Herodias, her fatal influence, 
103-105. Wife of Herod 
Antipas, excites her hus- 
band against John the Bap- 
tist, 224. Her resentment 
against John the Baptist, 
265. 

Herodian family, pedigree of 
the, 75. 

Herodians, Christ's encounter 
with the, who ask for a sign, 
275, 276. Origin of the 
party of the, 78. Plot with 
the Pharisees against Christ, 
255. The, 93, 94, 166. 

Herodium, the, 100. 

Heshbon, fortress of, under 
Herod, 83. 



Index. 



767 



1IEZEKIAII. 

llezekiah, pool of, 131. 

High-priest deprived of su- 
preme power by Gabinius, 
OS. Most important person 
in thf. state, 14. Robes of 
the, custom about the, 10G. 

High-priesthood, interruption 
of succession to, 56. Of Je- 
rusalem, passes out of the 
line of Jozadak, 40. 

High-priests under Herod I. 
and liia successors, 78. 

Hillel, school of, 174. 

— — , the Elder, 145. 

Hippicus, tower of, 8G. 

Hippo, made a Roman town, 
102. 

Holy Ghost, baptism of, 207. 
Descent of the, 203, 381, 3S2. 
The, commands the separa- 
tion of Saul and Barnabas 
from the Church at Antioch 
for the mission to the Gen- 
tiles, 43G. 

Holy Land, progress of the 
Gospel in the, 396. (See Ju 
dsea.) 

Holy Spirit, gift of the, 381 
Inward and external gifts 
of the, 3S1. New outpour 
ing of, after the release of 
Peter and John, 3SG. Prom 
ise of the, 355, 35G. Teach- 
ings of the, 3G7. 

Hosannas of the people at the 
entry of Christ into Jerusa- 
lem, 30G. 

Hymenseus, leader of a sect. 
612. Teaches that "the 
resurrection is passed al 
ready," 613. How Paul 
writes of him, 617. His 
heresy, 651, 652. 

Hyrcania, prison of, §4. 

Hyrcanus, John, acts of, 49. 
Succeeds his father in the 
priesthood, 43. Marches 
against Jericho, 49. Gives 
up Jerusalem, 50. His suc- 
cesses, 50. Joins the Sad- 
ducecs, 51. 

. , son of Alexander Jan- 

naeus, succeeds to the high- 
priesthood, 65. Nominally 
succeeds to the throne as 
Hyrcanus II., G5. His 
cause espoused by Antipa- 
ter, 65. Offers bribes to 
Rome, 66. Restored by 
Pompey, 66-6S. Made eth- 
narch, 69. Gained over by 
Herod, 70. Death of, 71. 



Iconium, Paul and Barnabas 
at, 445, 44G. 



JASON. 

Idumcea, under Herod, 81. 

Idumaeans, compelled to adopt 
the Jewish religion, 50, 
Embrace Judaism, 77. Forc- 
ible conversion of the, 149. 

Ignatius at Antioch, 153. One 
of the Apostolic Fathers, 
642. 

Inspiration of the Evangelists 
(see Evangelists). 

Ipsu3, battleof,18. 

Irenaeus at Lyons, 153. 

, disciple of Polycarp, C42. 

Ishmael, the high-priest, heads 
an embassy to Rome, 584. 

Isidore, one of the accusers of 
Flaccus, 113. 

Itursea, under Herod, 81. 

Iturasans, forcible conversion 
of the, 149. 



J. 

Jaddua, the high-priest, 14. 
His interview with Alexan- 
der the Great, 15, 16. 

Jairus, restoration to life of 
the daughter of, 243. 

James, charged by Christ to 
watcli in the garden, 318, 
319. Energy of, 262. 

, Epistle of, its genuine- 
ness and canonicity, 713. 
Its author, 714. Time and 
place nt which it was writ- 
ten, 714. Its object, 714, 715. 

, Paul's interview with, 

at Jerusalem, 540. 

, St., arraigned before the 

Sanhedrim, 123. 

, the Little, 281. 

,'St., the Less, Christ' 3 ap- 
pearance to, 355. One of! 
the pillars of the Church, 
£55. His identity witl 
James the son of Alphaeus, 
and James the brother of 
our Lord, 6G8. Called to 
the apostolate, 6GS. Christ 
appears to him, 6G9. His 
high position in the Church 
6G9, 670. Tradition concern 
ing him, 671-G73. Tomb 
of, 673. 

, the son of Zebedee, 6G4. 

The name of Boanerges 
given to him and St. John, 
666. His martyrdom, GG7. 

, final call of, 235. 

, whether brother of the 

Lord, 281, 282. 

Jamnia, Gorgias attacked at, 
38. Taken by the Romans, 
127. 

Jason, brother of the high- 
priest Onias III., obtains 
the high-priesthood, flees to 



JEBUSALEM. 

the Ammonites, 24. Attacks 
Jerusalem, 25. 

Jason of Cyrene, five books oi". 
Second of Maccabees based 
upon the, 157, 15S. 

, Paul supposed to be in 

the house of, 471, 473. 

, son of Eleazar, sent to 

Rome, 41. 

Jehudah, Rabbi, 151. 

Jericho, fortified by Bacchides, 
43. 
— , Pompey at, 67. 

Jerome, writings of, concern- 
ing Paul's journey to Spain, 
623. 

Jerusalem attacked by Jason, 
25. Taken by Antiochus, 
26. 

— — , beginning of Christ's 
public ministry at, 219. 

, besieged by Antiochus 

V., 39. Besieged by Herod, 
72 

, bishops of, 137. 

, Christ's lamentation 

over, 299. Christ's last ap- 
pearance to tbe Apostles at, 
356. Christ's prophecy of 
the destruction of, 312. 
Christ repeats his lamenta- 
tion over, 311. 

" , Church of," 129. It? 

government in the hands of 
James, 635. 

, destruction of, 134, 135. 

Later history of, 135. In- 
surrection at, under Hadri- 
an, 135. Ruins left by Ti- 
tus razed to the ground, 
13G. Entered by Pompey, 
67, C8. Entered by Alexan- 
der the Great, 16. 

— , epoch of the fall of, G44- 
650. Prophecy of the siege 
of, 64S. This epoch the 
type of the second coming 
of Christ, 650. 

, extension of, at the time 

of Agrippa, 110. Plan of, 
IIS. Factions in, 127. Fam- 
ine at, in the tima of Paul, 
120. 

, general dispersion of the 

disciples from, on account of 
persecution, 396. Its im- 
portance throughout ths 
wars of the Maccabees, 52. 
Fifth visit of St.Paul, to, 540. 

, Paul's visit to the 

Church, at the feast, at, 493. 

, possession of, secured by 

Judas Maccabeus, 37. Ri- 
ots at, under Pilate, 10S. 
State of, before its destruc- 
tion, 128. Siege of, 129-134. 
Taken by Ptolemy, 19. 

, the Ciurch at, confirms 



768 



Index. 



JEEUSALEM. 

St. Peter's admission of the 
Gentiles into the Church 
429. Gives a cordial re 
ception to Paul and Barna 
bas, 449. The first visit of 
St. Paul to, after his con 
rersion, 416, 417. The 120 
brethren at, 379. The mis 
sion of Barnabas and Saul 
to, 432, 433. 

erusalem, tower of, reduced by 
Simon, 47. Wall of, built dur- 
ing the siege by the .Romans, 
132. Works at, carried on, 
under Herod the Great, 86. 

Jesus (Joshua) son of Damne- 
us, high-priest, 123. 

< , name given to the Sav- 
iour, 185 (see Christ). 

, the son of Sirach, eulopv 

of, 20. The Wisdom of, 156 
(see Ecclesiasticus). 

Jewish exorcists, defeat of the 
506, 507. 

monarchy, end of the 

102. 

war, beginning of, 125, 

Jews, preparation for under 
standing state of, at opening 
of the New Testament, 14. 
Alleged participation of, in 
revolt of Sidonians, 15. 
Privileges of, said to have 
been granted by Alexander 
the Great, 16. A large num- 
ber of, removed to Egypt, 
17. Influence of Greece 
upon the, 19. 
.- — of Egypt, influence of 
Hellenism on, 21. Perse- 
cuted by Ptolemy IV., 23. 
Privileges under Antiochus, 
24. 

and Spartans, alleged 

kindred between, 25. Per- 
secuted by Antiochus IV., 
26. 

, silence of Greek and Ro- 
man historians about the, 
29, 30. Extinction of roy- 
alty among the, 31. Their 
independence under the 
Maccabees, 34. 

, Transjordanic, removed 

to Jerusalem, 38. 

, Galilean, removed to 

Jerusalem, SS. 

- — , divisions among the, at 
tima of Demetrius I., 40. 
Their league with Rome 
against Syria, 41. Courted 
by Demetrius I. and Alex- 
ander Balas, 43, 44. Under 
the Maccabees, 52, 58. Re- 
bellion of the, against Alex- 
ander Jannseus, 63. Their 
influence in Egypt, 63. Un- 
der Herod, 7S, 79. Moral 



degradation of the, at the 
time of Herod, 93. His- 
tory of, after the death of 
Herod, 92, 93. Secular his- 
tory of the, after the death 
of Herod, 9S. Their fury 
against Sabinus, 101. Their 
influence at Rome after the 
death of Herod, 101. Re- 
ligion of, proscription of, at 
Rome, under Tiberius, 110. 
Under Caligula, persecution 
of the, 1 10, 111. Their treat- 
ment under Caligula, 111— 
114. Interview of the, with 
Caligula, 112, 113. Under 
Claudius, 115. Banished 
from Rome by Claudius, 120. 
Under Florus, 124, 125. Be- 
ginning of their war with 
Rome, 126. Their revolts in 
Cyrenaica, Egypt, Cyprus, 
and Mesopotamia, 1E5. For- 
bidden to reside at Jerusa- 
lem, 136. Under Julian, at- 
tempt to build a temple, 138. 
Opposition of Samaritans to 
the, 141. Their treatment 
of the Samaritans, 142. 
Egyptian, importance of 
the, under the Ptolemies, 
14G. Of Palestine, prose- 



youth some trade, 405. 
Form a conspiracy against 
St. Paul, 416. The Gospel 
always offered to them first 
by the Apostles on their 
missionary journeys, 43S. 
Contradict Paul, 444. Their 
anger at their association 
with the Gentiles as re- 
ceivers of the same Gospel, 
445. 
Jews, at Thessalonica, stir up 
the people against Paul, 471. 
Pursue him to Bercea, 474. 
— , at Corinth, their fury 
against St. Paul, 488. Their 
tumult against St. Paul, 490, 
491. 

— , Roman, early propaga- 
gation of Christianity among 
the, 533. 

— , their plot against St. 
Paul's life, 54S. 
— , at Rome, Paul's two con- 
ferences with the, 5S2, 5S3. 
Their rejection of the Gos- 
pel, terminating the first 
stage in the history of its 
foundation, 583. 
— , prophecy of their future 
restoration in the Epistle to 
the Romans. 5S3. 



lytism of the, 14S, 14^). De- Joakim (Jacimus), appointed 

mand a sign, 221. Their in- high-priest (f-ee Alcimus). 

dignation at Christ's asser- Joanna, wife of Chuza, 208. 

lion of his power to confer! Her visit to the sepulchre, 

spiritual life, 246. Pros-[ 349. 

perity of the, from the sec- Joaza, high-priest, displaced 

ond to the seventh century, J by Archelaus, 102. 

251. Emissaries of rulers, Joaza r, made high-priest, 89. 

the, watch Christ in Gali-I High-priest, prudence of, 

lee, 253. Mention of, in the! 107. 

records of Christ's contro- Joel, fulfillment of the proph- 

vcrsial teaching, 273. Press ecy of, 383. 

Jesus to tell them plainly Johanan (see Jonathan). 

whether he was the Christ, John Mark, the nephew of 

295. They again attempt to| Barnabas, 432, 433. Accom- 



stonehim, 295. Alternative 
offered to them for the last- 
time between the acceptance 
and rejection of their spirit- 
ual king, 305. Consult how 
they can secure Christ, 312. 
Their impotence to execute 
the sentence of condemna- 
nation on Christ, 324. Ac- 
cept the responsibility of 
Christ's death, 326. 
Jews, enumeration in the 
" Acts" of the provinces 
and regions in which they 
■were found, 3S2. Their as- 
sembling at Jerusalem on 
the Day of Pentecost, 333. 
Their cry to Peter and the 
Apostles, 383. Reform of 
their selfish rapacity, 384. 
Their custom to teach every 



panies Barnabas and Saul in 
their first missionary jour- 
ney, 437, 488. Desertion of, 
441. His subsequent rela* 
tions to Paul and Peter, 441. 
Paul refuses to take him on 
his second missionary jour- 
ney, 459. He accompanies 
Barnabas to Cyprus, 459. 
(See Mark.) 
— , St., follows Christ, COS. 
His deep insight in to Christ's 
teaching, 230. His office of 
recording a special aspect 
of our Lord's ministry, 244. 
Doctrinal discourses of our 
Lord in, 245, 246. His omis ; 
sion of the Sermon on the 
Mount, 256. His energy 
united with his spirit of love, 
261. Sent to prepare the 



Index. 



769 



list supper, 316. His pres- 47. His victory over the 
ence at it, 317. Charged by j Syrians, 49 (.see Hyrcanus). 
Christ to watch in the gar- John, son of Mattathias, 34. 
den, 319. Remains when Killed, 43. 

the other disciples flee, 320. , son of Zebedee, final call 

Remains beside the cross of! of, 235. 



Christ, 333. His visit to the - 
sepulchre, 350. One of the 
pillars of the Church, 355.! 
His title of " elder," 717. 
At the conferences at Jeru-; 
salem about the Judaizing 1 
spirit in the Church, 451. 
Survives the fall of Jeru-' 
salem, G55. His early life,' 

656, 657. His friendship 
with Simon Bar-jonah, 

657. His life with Christ, 
657. The name Boanerges 
given to him and his broth- 
er, 657. His association 
with Peter, 65S. Account 
of him in the Acts, 655. 
His departure from Judaea, 
659. At Ephesus, 661. Ex- 
iled to Patmos, 661. Tra- 
ditions of St. John, 681. 
Legend and time of his 
death, 662. His title of: 
"Theologus," 662, 663. Un- 1 
dertakes to write the Gos-i 
pel, 6S4. 

John, First Epistle of, its au-j 
thenticity, 716. Time and 
place at which it was writ- 
ten, 716. Its object, 716., 
Doubtful passages, 716, j 
717. 

. , Second and Third Epis-[ 

ties of, their authenticity, 
717. To whom addressed, 
717. Their object, 717. Be-| 
ginning of the Gospel his- 
tory according to, 17S. 

• , Gospel of, supplemental 

to the other three, 220; I 



— the Baptist, remonstrates 
with Herod Antipas, 103. | 
His birth announced by the - 
angel Gabriel, 180. Born, - 
182. His name decided, 132. - 
Vowed a Nazarite, 1S3. His| 
youth passed in the deserts, 
1S3. In the wilderness about; 
Eugedi, 199. Appears in 
public, 199. Date of appear- - 
ance, 199. His preaching 
of repentance, 200. His - 
baptism, 200. His addresses 
to different classes, 201.'- 
Believed in by the mass of 



JU1XEA. 

through the port of, 47. St. 
Paul's converts at, 428, 
Taken by the Romans, 127. 
Joseph, betrothed to Mary, ISO. 
Marries her, 1S4. Carries 
Jesus and Mary into Egypt, 



183. His death, 191. His 
genealogy, 194. 

— , defeated by Gorgias, 33. 

— , his retreat to Galilee, 99. 

— , nephew of the high- 
priest Onias II., establishes 
u civil authority side by side 
with that of the high-priest, 
22. 

— of Arimathea, begs the 
body of Christ, 336. 

— , son of Antipater, 69- 
Killed, SO. 

— r, steward of Herod, SO. 
(see Josephus Flavins). 



the people and by the publi- Josephus, chief authority at 
cans, 201. His predictions the period after the death 
of the Messiah, 202. Bap- of Simon, 49. 

tizes Christ, 202, 203. Con -, Flavins, the Jewish his- 

tinues to prepare the people torian, 126. 

to receive Christ, 203, Ap- Joses, whether brother of the 

pealed to by the priests and Lord, 2S1. 

Levites to tell them who he Joshua, high-priest under Her- 

was, 207. Proclaims Christ] od, 85. 

as the Lamb of God, 207. , slain by his brother Jon- 

At iEnon, 223. His final athan, the high-priest, 15. 

testimony to Christ, 224.! , son of Damneus (<cc 

Appears before Herod Anti-j Jesus). 

pas, 224. Imprisoned, 224. (.see Jason). 

Distinction between his Jotapata, defense of, 127. 
preaching andthatof Christ, Judah Hakkodesh, Rabbi, 257. 
231,232. Last notice of, be- Judaea, becomes a Roman 
fore his death, 264. Hisdis-j province, 102. Condition of. 



ciples come to tell him of the 
deeds of Christ, 264. Christ's 
message to, 264. His death, 
265. Christ's testimony to, 
265. The heresy maintain- 
ing him to be the Messiah, 
504, 505. 



mark of this, 223; another Joiada, the high-priest, 14. 
instance of this, 226. No Jonah, the sign of the prophet, 
parables in the, 2S5. Its! 275. 

authority, 707. Place and Jonah's three days' confine- 
time at which it was writ-! ment in the fish made a type 
ten, 707. Its occasion and; of our Lord's burial, 263. 
scope, 70S. Its contents and Jonathan, high-priest, 121. 
integrity, 703. Its genuine-j Killed, 121. 

ness, its relation to the , the high-priest, 14. Slays 

other Gospels, etc (.see Gos-l his brother, 15. 

pels). , son of Annas, made high- 

— , Revelation of, 644. j priest, 109. 

— and Peter heal the lame -, son of Mattathia 



man at the "Beautiful" 
pate of the Temple, 3S4. | 
Their appearance before the 
Sanhedrim, 385. Their close! 
connection, 3S5. Confer on 
the converted Samaritans 
the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
397. 
• — , second son of Simon, 



35, 

3S. Chosen leader, 43. 
Avenges his brother's death, 
42. Makes peace with Bac- 
chides, 43. Nominated to 
the high-priesthood, 43 
Burns Azotus, 45. Gains 
favor with Demetrius II., 
45. Made prisoner by Try- 
phon, 46. Killed, 46 



made capatin of the host, Joppn, commerce with Europe 
H H 



under Felix, 121. Chris- 
tians of, 379. Christ's con- 
verts in, 223. Churches of, 
rest and prosperity of, 419. 
Description of, by Josephus, 
144. Earthquake at, SO. 
Extent of, under Herod, 81. 
Famine and pestilencs in, 
under Herod, S4. Famine 
in, 433. Finally freed from 
Syria, 50. Restored to its 
ancient limits under John 
Hyrcanus, 50. Greek cus- 
toms first openly introduced 
into, 24. Independence of, 
under Asmoneean princes, 
14. Won by Judas Macca- 
baeus, 41. Granted by De- 
metrius, 47. Its state at the 
time of St. Paul's fifth visit 
to Jerusalem, 542. Peace 
of, under Simon, 47. Posi- 
tion of, after the battle of 
Ipsus, IS. Reduced to an 
ordinaiy Roman province, 
106. Relations of, to Rome, 
14. State of, at the appear- 
ance of John the Baptist, 
199. The Jew3 of, on tho 
x-eturn from the Captivity, 



770 



Index. 



JUDAISM. 

140. Under Caligula the 
rest of the churches viewed 
in relation to the state of, 
423. Under Roman protec- 
tion, 68. Under Maccabees, 
history of, passed over by 



LAODICEAN. 

Jude, Epistle of, its authorship, 
718. Time and place at 
which it was written, 718. 
Its genuineness, 718. Ob- 
ject, 718, 



Judge, Christ reveals himself 



as a, 265, 
Judgment, the principle of, 

preached in the Sermon on 

the Mount, 263. 
Judith, book of, 155. 



Greek and Roman writers. 
29. 

Judaism, alliance between 
Gnosticism and, 613. Di- 
vided into sects, 19. Tv/o 

forms of, infecting the Chris-' Julian, his design of restorin 
tian Church, 614. I the Jewish worship 

Judaizers at Jerusalem, Paul's Mount Moriah, 13S. 
opposition to, 494. Dangers Julias, city of, 105. 
from the, 540, 541. In theijulius has charge of Paul on 



Church at Colossse, 5S7. In 

the Galatian churches, 502. 

St. Paul's life-long contest 

with, 455. 
Judaizing spirit in the Church, 

443, 449. Public discussion 

of the, 450, 451. 
Judas Barsabas, sent to An- 

tioch, 456. 
.-» — , brother of James, his re- 
solve to " contend earnestly 

for the faith once delivered 

to the saints," 262. 
«- — Iscariot, his love of the 

world, 262. Christ alludes 

for the first time to his trea- 
son, 273. Treason of, 312, 

313. His presence at the 

Last Supper, 317. His trai- 
tor's kiss, 320. His remorse, 

328. His suicide, 328. The 

sentence pronounced upon 

him by the Lord, 328. HisJKarem es Seyad, 340. 

place filled by Matthias, 676.]Kedron, the brook, 318 



in Colossians iv. 16, 593, 
Theory about the, 602-606. 

Laomedon governs Palestine, 
19. 

Lasaea, ruins of, 564. 

Law, Christ proclaims that he 
comes to fulfill the, 263, 

, Jewish, discussion about 

the, 451. 

of the New Dispensation. 

263. 

, The (see Pentateuch). 

onjLazarieh (see el-Azaryieh). 

Lazarus raised from the dead, 
29S. Effect of the miracle, 
300. The Pharisees resolve 
to put him to death, 300. 



the voyage when he is sent 

to Rome, 561. His conductJLebbaeus (see Jude). 

at the shipwreck, 576. Re- Leehaeum, harbor of, 4S2. 

port of, at Rome, 581. 
Junia, 534. 
Jupiter Capitoline, temple 

erected at Jerusalem to the, 

136. 
Justification by faith in Christ 

no merely Pauline doctrine, 

443. Jewish hostility to thejLevite 

doctrine, 444. | 14. 

Justin Martyr in Palestine, iLidd or Liidd (see Lyd da) 



Legatus, the (see Sheliach). 

Leprosy, curing of, by Christ, 
240. 

Levi, call of (see Matthew). 

, the publican (see Mat- 
thew). 

, tribe of, 15. 

chief of the fathers, 



153. 

Justus, St. Paul meets his fol- 

lowti's in the house of, 4S7. 



Kaisarieh (see Csesarea). 
Kana-el-jelil (see Cana). 



Maccabseus, succeed 
his father, 36. Gathers an 
army, 36. Defeats Nicanor, 
36. Crosses the Jordan and 
slays 20,000 Syrians, 37. 
Defeats Lysias, 37. His de- 
scent on Joppa, 3S. Burns 



Kefr Kenna (see Cana). 

Keys of the kingdom of heav 
en, the, figure of, 277. 

Kahn Minyeh (see Caperna- 
um, site of) 

Kibleh, Jerusalem the, of 
Jewish devotion, 160. 



Jarnnia, 3S. Marches into'King of the Jews, variations 
in the title by the Evangel- 
ists, 332. 
Kingdom of heaven, proclaim- 
by Christ as at hand, 232. 



Gilead, 3S. Compelled to 

retreat to Jerusalem^ 39. 

Gains the Battle of Adasa, 

41. Makes a treaty with 

Rome, 42. His death, 42. 
~= — of Galilee, revolt of, 

S8S. 
. , son of Simon, his victory 

over the Syrians, 49. 

, St. Paul the guest of, 413 

, the Essene, 172. 

, the Gaulonite, sect arise 

under, 199. 
, whether brother of the 

Lord, 2S1, 2S2 
Jude denounces the corruption 

of the last times, 643 
— *— , the apostle, 674. The 

same as Lebbaous and Thad 

H$eus, GT5. Tradition con 

cerning him, 675. 



L. 



Lacedaemonians, alliance 

the Jews Avith the, 46. 
Lagus, satrap of Egypt, 19. 
Lamb of God, Christ as the, 

304, 305 (see Christ, Titles 

of). 
Lamentation of Christ over 

Jerusalem, place of the, 338. 
Language of the Jews, 56. 
Laodicea, the city of, 602. 

Clnistianitv introduced into 

602. 
Laodicean Epistle, mentioned 



Light of the World, Christ de- 
clares himself the, 293. 

Linus, conversion of, 626. 

Literature and the arts undei 
the Maccabees, 56, 57. 

of Alexandrine Jews, 147. 

Loaves and Fishes, miracle, 
first, of the, 271. 

Locusts, food of John the Bap- 
tist, controversy about, 199. 

Lois, grandmother of Timothy, 
400. 

Longinus, prefect of Syria, 
120. 

Lord's Day, sacredness of the, 
349, 353. 

the first (see Easter Day). 

Love, Law of, as laid down by 
Christ, 263. 

— , the fulfilling of the Law, 
310. 

Lucius of Cyrene, 148. 

Lucullus, 66. 

Luke, St., his sources of in- 
formation, 230. His account 
of the Sermon on the Mount, 
258, 259. His account of 
Paul' s conversion, 409. His 
appearance in the company 
of St. Paul on his second 
missionary journey, 459. 
Accompanies him into Mace- 
donia, 4G5. Left at Philippi, 
470. Witness of the latter 
part of the career of St. 
Paul down to his imprison- 
ment at Rome, 501. Wheth- 
er with Titus at Corinth, 525. 
Shares the imprisonment of 
Paul at Rome,5S5. Ilis last 



Index. 



771 



LUKE. 

relations with St. Paul, G28. 
Hia name of Evangelist, 684. 
Author of the Acts of the 
Apostles, 637. Outline of 
his life, 6SS-690. His con- 
nection with St. Paul, 6S8- 
090. Second treatise of, 
378. Beginning of the Gos- 
pel History according to, 
178. 
Luke, Gospel of, parables in 
the, 2S5. Concerning the 
interval in our Lord's life 



Maccabees, First Book of, 49, 
157. 

•, Second Book of. 157. 

, Third Book of, 153. 

, Fourth Book of, 15S. 



Macedonia, its contributions 
for the poor in Jerusalem, 
494. Mission of Timothy 
and Erastus to, 507. Paul 
in, 521, 522. Paul's collec- 
tion in, 529. Paul's voyage 
to, 465. Vision of the man 
of, 464. 



KATTIIEV. 



uineness, its relation to the 
other Gospels, etc (see Gos- 
pel). 

Lycaonia, intercourse between 
the churches in, 46 >. Paul 
and Barnabas in, 445. 

Lydda, conversion of the peo- 
ple of, 426. 

Lydia, conversion of, 4GG. 

Lysanias, tetrarch, 115. 

Lysias, general of Antiochus 
• IV., 28. Guardian of Anti- 
ochus V., 36. Advances to 
Bethsura, 37. Places Anti- 
ochus V. on the throne, 30. 
Put to death, 40. 

rescues St. Paul in the 

Temple court, 542. Places 
him before the Sanhedrim. 
544. Sends him to Felix, 
547, 543. 

Lysimaclms, sacrileges of, 25. 
Killed, 25. 

Lystra, Paul and Barnabas at, 
436. Cure of the cripple at, 
44G. Site of, 446. 



Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, 
137. 

Maecabaean history, authori- 
ties for, 5S. Line, last king 
of the, 72. 

Maccabee, etymology of, 35. 

Maccabees, authorities for the 
history of the, 35. Condi- 
tion of the Jews under the, 
31. Struggle of, against An- 
tiochus Epiphanes,14. Their 
sacrifice, 52. Their contest, 
52, 53. Social and religious 
progress of Jews under the, 
55. Literature under. 56, 



Paul and Barnabas, 686. 
His relation to Peter, 6S6. 
Beginning of the Gospel his- 
tory, according to, 178. 
Mark,St., Gospel of, records the 
acts rather than, the teach- 
ing of Christ, 285. Sources 
of the, 702. Written prima- 
rily for Gentiles, 703. Time 
when it was written, 703. 
Place where it was written, 
704. Its genuineness, 704. 
Its style and diction and 
contents, 704, 705. Divis- 
ions of, 705. Its genuine- 
ness, its relation to the other 
Gospels, etc (see Gospels). 
Marriage, Christ's sanction of 

the ordinance of, 214. 
Martha, sister of Lazarus, 
632. j Christ's reply to her, 297. 

Malchas (sec Cleodemus). Martyrion, the, built by Cou- 

Malchus, king of Arabia, cam- stantine, 137. 
paign of Herod against, SO. Mary Magdalene, 266, 267. At 
burial of Christ, 336. 



between the Feast of Taber-Machaerus, fortress of, 264. 

nacles and the Passover, 296. Magadan (see Magdala). 

Whether written at Csesa-lMagdala, village of, 26S. 

rea, 554. Origin of the, 705. Magians,' the, their worship of 

Its date and the place where) Christ, ISO. 

it was written, 706. Pur- Magnificat, the, 182. 

poses for which it Avas writ- Malabar. Christian Church in, 

ten, 706. Its integrity, 70 

Its first two chapters, 70 

Its contents, 707. Its ge: 



Malichus, courtier of Hyrca- 

0. 

Malta, coast of, chart of part 
" the, 573. 
island of (see Melita). 
Malthace, fourth wife of Herod 

the Great, 9S. 
Mamzerim, 696. 
Manasseh, aposta^v of, 16. 

High-priest, 22. 

— , obtains permission to 

build -a temple on Mount 

Gerizim for the Samaritans, 

141. 
Maimasses, king of Judah, 

prayer of, 157. 



the 



Carries the news of the sup- 
posed removal of Christ's 
body to Peter and John, 
349. Christ's appearance to, 
351. 

— , mother of Christ, Gabriel 
appears to, ISO. Visits Eliz- 
abeth, 182. Her miraculous 
conception, 1S3. Gives birth 
to the Saviour, 184. Lives 
with her widowed sister, 
191. Genealogy of, 193. 
At the marriage at Cana, 
209. Taken home by John, 
336. 



Marcellns, procurator of Ju , mother of Mark, 685, 

d?ea, 109. | 686. 

Marcus, Bishop of Jerusalem, , sister of Lazarus, anoints 

137. | the Lord, 267. At the feet 

Mariamne, daughter of the of Jesus, 297. 
high-priest Simon, and third , sister of Mary the moth- 
wife of Herod, 9S. er of Jesus, 191. 

— , wife of Herod, 71, 79, SO. I , wife of Clopas, 2S1. Her 

Her death, 82. ' I sons, 2S2. At the burial of 

— , tower of, S6. ! Christ, 336. 

Mark Antony, 63. Has do- Marys, the three, remain by 
minion of the East, 71. Fa- the cross, 333. 

vors Herod, 71, 72. Sum- , visit of the two, to the 

mons Herod, 79. sepulchre, 349. 

Mark, St., his sources of in- Massade, fortress of, 71. 
formation, 230. Explana- Mattathias, the priest, escapes 
tion of his omission of the, from Jerusalem, 35. Refuses 
Sermon on the Mount, 259. to obey the royal edict, 34. 
Companion of Paul in His Dies, 35. 
imprisonment at Rome, 5S5, Matthew, St., his sources ofin- 



536. At Ephesus, 613. Hi 
last relations with St. Paul, 
629. With Peter at Baby- 
lon, 637. His name of 
Evangelist, 6S4. Whether 
he is himself the young man 
whom he describes as pres- 
ent at the seizure of Christ, 
685. His connection with 



formation, 230. Call of, 242. 
Feast given by, 242. His 
account of the Sermon on 
the Mount, 253, 259. The 
same as Levi the publican, 
679. Undertakes to write 
the Gospel, 634. Beginning 
of the Gospel history accord* 
ing to, 178, 



772 



Index. 



MATTIIEW. 

Matthew, St., Gospel of, para 
bles in the, 2S5. Language 
in which it was written, 701 
Citations from Old Testa- 
ment, 701. Genuineness of 
the first two chapters, 701. 
Time and place at which ii 
was written, 701. Its pur 
pose, 701, 702. Its contents, 
702. Its genuineness, its re- 
lation to the o;her Gospels, 
etc (see Gospels). 

Matthias, chosen as an Apostle 
ill place of Judas, 379, 380. 
Fills the place of Judas Is- 
cariot, 676. 

, high-priest, the, deposed. 

80. 

Meckme, buildings of the, 95. 

Meiita (Malta), island of, its 
people and its primate Pub 
lius, 576, 577. Paul's mira- 
cle at, 57S. 

Menelaus obtains the high- 
priesthood, 24. Sacrilege 
of, 25. Death, 26. 

Meroe, in Ethiopia, 39S. 

Messiah, advent of the, an- 
nounced to Herod, 8% 90. 
Expectation of the, 101. Je- 
sus announces himself as the, 
232. 

Micah, the prophet, his au- 
thority that Bethlehem 
would be the birthplace of 
the Messiah, 90. 

Michmash, fortress of, 43. 

Miletus, Paul's voyage to, 537. 

Ministry, Christ's, duration 
of, 220 (see Duration). Scene 
of, 220 (see Scene). 

of angels to Jesus, 206. 

Miracle at the u Beautiful" 
gate, 334. At the gate of 
Nain, 2(54. First, of the 
loaves and fishes, 271. Of 
healing the man blind from 
his birth, 293 ; character of, 
294. The man brought be- 
fore the Council, 294; ex- 
communicated, 294. Of 
healing the man with the 
withered hand, 255. Of heal- 
ing two blind men at Jeri- 
cho, 300. Of the cure of lep- 
rosy, 240, 241. Of the cure 
of the demoniac, 236-238. 
Of the civre of the paralytic, 
241. Of the finding the 
piece of money in the fish's 
mouth, 279. Of the healing 
of the centurion's servant, 
264. Of the healing of the 
courtier's son, 227, 22S. Of 
the healing of the deaf and 
dumb, 274. Of the healing 
of the man possessed by 
a legion of devils, 26S. Of 
the .stilling of the storm,! 



NAZARITE. 



ONESirilORUS. 



Nazarites, St. Paul joins four, 
in their vow, 54 1 . 



26S. Second, of the loaves 
and fishes, 274. 

Miracles already familiar to Nein, site of the ancient Nain, 
the Jews, 212. Tests laid| 265. 
down by the Rabbis, 212 ; Nero, accession of, 495. His 



satisfied in the miracle at 
Cana, 212, 213. Effect of 
the miracle on the disciples, 
234. Social aspect of, 214. 
At the shore of the Galilean 
lake, 255. Doctrine of, 211. 
In the evening of the Sab- 
bath at Capernaum, 233. 
Of St. Paul, 506. Of the 



decision between Festus and 
Agrippa and the Jews, 123. 
Whether he heard Paul's 
case, 596. His persecution 
of the Christians, 620. 
Whether he heard Paul 
when he was a second time 
prisoner at Borne, 628. 

Nerva, accession of, 661. 
Apostles, 387. Performed I Nethinim, the, 696. 
by Christ at the Passover, Nicanor, commands a Syrian 
army, 3G. Sent to restore 
Alcimus, 41. Slain, 41. 

., one of the seven deacons, 

390, 691. 

Nicetas Choniates, the Byzan- 
tine writer, 588. 

Nicodemus, his relations to- 
ward Christ, 222. The secret 



222. The beginning of 
Christ's, 211. Various ex 
amples of Christ's, 243. 

Mishna, the, 151. Compila- 
tion of the, 251. 

Missionary journey, first, of 
Paul and Barnabas, 437, 438. 
The second, of St. Paul, 45S. 
The third, of St. Paul, 503. 

Mithridates, 66. 

Mnason, disciple of Cyprus, 
accompanies St. Paul to Je- 
rusalem, 540. 

Modin, city of, 34, 59, CO. 
Monument at, 60. 

Months, Macedonian names of, 
supposed to be used by Jo- 
sephus, 133. 

Moses, appears in the Trans- 
figuration, 278. 

Myra, Paul's voyage to, 562, 
563. 



N. 



OfAra- 



Nabathpoans, the, 43, 
bia Petrsea, 65. 

Nablus, settlement of Samar- 
itans at, 144. 

Nahum, the Mede, 145. 

Nain, miracle at gate of, 264. 
Site of, 204. 

Naos (see Temple of Herod). 

Nasi, president of the Sanhe- 
drim, 73. 

Nathanael, character of, 262. 
Is present at Christ's third 
appearance to the Apostles, 
354. (See Bartholomew). 

Nativity, Star of the, appear- 
ance of the, announced to 
Herod, 89. 

Nazarenes, origin of the name, 
189. 

Nazareth, account of, 196. 
Under opprobrium, 196. 
Christ brought to, 189. 
Christ's rejection at, 226, 
232. Christ's second rejec- 
tion at, 269. 

Nazarite, John the Baptist, a, 
182, 183. 



disciple, in the Council, 291. 
Brings myrrh and aloes to 
anoint the body of Christ, 
336. 

Nicolai, origin of name of, S8. 

Nicolaitans, heresy of the, 625. 
Sect of the, 692. 

Nicolas of Damascus, follows 
Archelaus to Rome, 101. 
Pleads his cause, 102. 

, one of the seven deacons, 

390. Not belonging to the 
sect of Nicolaitans, 692. 

Nicolaus Damascenus, the 
rhetorician, 88. 

Nicopolis, Paul at, 618, 619. 

Nikon, the ram, 130. 

Nisibis, Petrine tone, in Chris- 
tian School, at, 636. 

Nunc Dimittis, the, 182, 186. 

Nymphas, saluted in the Epis- 
tle to the Colossians, 605. 



Octavian, his favor toward 
Herod, 81. 

Offense, Mount of, 339. 

Olives, Mount of, Christ and 
the disciples go out to the, 
■ 318. Account of the, 337- 
341. Sacred house erected 
on the, by the Empress 
Helena, 339. 

Olivet (see Olives). 

Olympic Games, Herod made 
president of, 84. 

Onesimus, his relation to Phil- 
emon, 590, 591. His mission 
to the Colossians and Ephe- 
sians, 592. 

Onesiphorus, ministers to Paul 
in the last stage of hiscourso, 
024. 



Index. 



773 



Onias, stoned to death, 65. 

1., high-priest, 19. 

■ II. , high-priest, 22. 

III., high-priest, 23. De 

posed, 24. Put to death, 25, 

IV., heir to high-priest- 

hood, tries to revive Jewisl: 
worship in Egypt, 40. 

Onkelos, 152. 

Ophel, suhurb of, burned, 134. 
Wall of, 94, 95. 

Oral Law, belief of the Phar- 
isees in an, 165. 

Ordination, ceremony of. 
adopted by the Christian 
Church from the Jewish 
438. 

Orodes, Arabian king, defeats 
Alexander Jannseus, 64. 

Otiosi (see Batlanim). 



Palace of Herod, 85. 

Pacorus, the Parthian, 71. 

Palestine, division of, at the 
time of Christ, 252. Gov- 
erned by Laomedon, 19. 
By Ptolemy, 19. Subject to 
the first five Ptolemies, 19. 
The dowry of Cleopatra, 23. 

Pallas, brother of Felix, 122. 

Palm Sunday, 304. 

Pangseus, gold mines of, 465. 
Clans of, 466. 

Panium, temple at, 84. 

Paphos, Barnabas and Saul at, 
438. Situation of, 439. 

Pappus, general of Antigonus, 
T2. 

Parable, meaning of the word, 
2S3. 

of the faithful and un- 
faithful servant, 312. 

of the foolish virgins, 

312. 

Parables ascribed to Hillel, 
Shammai, and other great 
rabbis, 2S4. 

, Christ's, 26S. 

^ — concerning the rejection 
of Christ by the Pharisees, 
308. 

of Christ, 2S3-2S5. Their 

number, 2S5. List of the, 
2S5. Interpretation of the, 
286. 

Paraclete, the, 318. 

Paralytic, cure of the, 241. 

Parmenas, one of the seven 
deacons,' 390, 691. 

Parmenio, 16. 

Parthians, overthrow of Cras- 
sus by the, 69. 

, the, assist Syria, 71. 

Paschal Lamb, the, scdected, 
304. Time appointed for 
killing the, 314. J 



Paschal Week, first day of the, 
304. Second day of the, 306. 
Third day of the, last day 
of our Lord's public teach 
ing, 307-311. Fourth day 
of the, 313. Fifth day of 
the, when the Passover must 
be killed, 314. Evening and 
night of the, 316. 

" Passion Week," the, 303. 

Passover, approach of the, 
after Christ's short abode at 
Capernaum, 215. Christ at- 
tends the, 189. Feast of the 
exact time of its commence 
ment, 314. Christ's appear- 
ance at, 219, 220. Second, 
of Christ's ministry ( 
Feast of the Jews). The 
Third, during our Lord's 
ministry, 271. What the 
sign of, 315. 

, (see Supper, Paschal). 

Passovers, mentioned by St. 
John, 219. The, during our 
Lord's ministry, 249, 250. 

Pastoral Epistles, their testi- 
mony to St. Paul's freedom 
after two years' imprison- 
ment at Home, 596. Their 
general indications, 608, 609. 
Difficulties of detail, 610. 
Scheme of Mr. Lewin, 010. 

Patmos, aspect of, 558. St. 
John banished to, 55S. Tra- 
ditional scene of the Revela- 
tion, 559. 

Paul, St., special revelation to, 
261. Chosen as the apostle 
of the Greeks, GS2. Outline 
of his life, 403, 404. His first 
appearance as a persecutor, 
403. Review of his former 
life, 404. His birthplace and 
parentage, 404. His Roman 
citizenship, 404. His trade 
of tent-making, 405. His 
education in Greek learning 
at Tarsus, 405, and in rab- 
binical lore at Jerusalem, 
405. His rigid Pharisaism 
and zeal for the Law, 406. 
His persecuting spirit in its 
relation to the teaching of 
Gamaliel, 407. Confessions 
of his own state of mind, 407, 
408. His part in the mar- 
tyrdom of Stephen and the 
ensuing persecutions, 408. 
The three accounts of his 
conversion, 409. Scene of 
the, 410. The light, and 
Paul's vision of Jesus, 410. 
The sound, and Paul's col- 
loquy with the Lord, 411. 
The outward and inward 
aspects of the scene, 411 , 412. 
Before Agrippa, 411. His 
return to Damascus, 413. J 



The mission of Ananias to 
him, 413. Restored to sight 
and baptized, 414. His con- 
version an evidence of the 
truth of Christianity, 414, 

415. His designation to the 
apostleship, 415. His min- 
istry at Damascus and re- 
tirement into Arabia, 415, 

416. His escape from Da- 
mascus to Jerusalem, 416. 
His reception by the Apos- 
tles and the Church, 417. 
Disputes with the Hellenists, 

417. His relations to Peter, 
417, 41S. His vision in the 
Temple and full commission 
to the Gentiles, 41S. Chro- 
nology of his life, 419-423. 
His ministry in' Syria and 
Cilicia, 432. With Barnabas 
at Antioch, 432. Whether 
at Jerusalem at the time of 
the deliverance of Peter from 
prison, 4-33. His mission to 
Jerusalem (his second visit), 
433. His rapture and in- 
firmity, 434, 435. His sepa- 
ration with Barnabas for the 
mission to the Gentiles, 436. 
One of the Apostles, 437. 
His first missionary journey 
with Barnabas, 437, 43S. 
They preach in the Jewish 
synagogue, 438. Conver- 
sion of Sergius Paulus and 
judgment on Elymas, 439. 
Precedence of Paul over Bar« 
nabas, 440. The name of, 
440. Passage of the Taurus, 
440, 441. At Antioch in 
Pisidia, 441, 442. His dis- 
course there in the syna- 
gogue, 442, 443. Persecuted 
by the Jews, 444. With Bar- 
nabas at Iconium, 446. Suc- 
cess and persecution there, 
446. Cure of the cripple at 
Lystra, 416. Stoned, 447. 
His return journey with Bar- 
nabas, 447. Considered by 
the people at Lystra to be 
Mercury, 446. His first dis- 
course to mere heathens, 
446. He and Barnabas go 
to Jerusalem to oppose the 
Judaizing spirit in the 
Church, 448. Comparison 
of this visit with that in Gal. 
ii., 449. "Goes up by rev- 
elation," 4 r )0. Conferences 
and compacts with the other 
Apostles, James, Peter and 
John, 450. His report with 
that of Barnabas, 452. His 
reproof of Peter, 455. Re- 
turns with Barnabas to An- 
tioch, 456. His second mis, 
sionary journey, <C:5S. Ao 



774' 



Index. 



companied by Silas, 469 
Their visit to Syria, Cilicia 
and Lycaonia, 459, 460. Is 
accompanied by Timothy on 
his journey, 461. InPhrygia 
andGalatia,462. Forbidden 
ii preach the Gospel in Asia. 

463. His call into Europe, 

464. His illness, 465. His 
voyage to Macedonia, 465 
At Neapolis, 465. At Phil- 
ippi, 465-469. Conversion 
of Lydia, 466. Healing of 
the possessed damsel, 467. 
Scourged and imprisoned 
with Silas, 46S. Conversion 
of the jailer after the earth- 
quake, 469. Proclaims his 
Roman citizenship, 4T0. 
His release, 469. Arrives 
with Silas at Thessalonica, 
471. Preaches in the syna- 
gogue and rouses the envy 
of the Jews, 471. Leave: 
Thessalonica, 471. Hi: 
teaching there, 472. At 
Bercea,473. Sails to Athens 

474. His emotions at the 
sight of the cit5 r , 475. His 
discourses in the Agora, 475. 
Encountered by the Stoics 
and Epicureans, 475, 476. 
His discourse at the Areop- 
agus, 476-479. His '"evela- 
tion of the Unknowa God, 

475, 479. His rebuke of 
idolatry and preaching of 
repentance and judgment by 
Him whom God had raised, 
4S0. Interruption of his 
discourse, 4S0. His depart- 
ure from Athens, 481. His 
converts at Athens, 4S0. 
Lives at Corinth with Aquila 
and Priscilla, working with 
his own hands, 4S3. His 
reasons for this course, 484, 
485. u Constrained by the 
Word," 486. His plain proc- 
lamation of Christ crucified, 
4S7. Rejected by the Jews, 
he turns to the Gentiles, 4S7! 
God visits him by a vision 
in the night, 4SS. His auto- 
graph salutation, to prove his 
letters genuine, and to add 
emphasis to truth, 489, 490. 
Brought before Gallio, 491. 
Tumult of the Jews against, 
490, 491. His vow at Cen- 
chrea?, 492. His voyage to 
Ephesus and visit to the syn- 
agogue, 493. Goes to Jeru- 
salem, 493. Connection of 
this visit with his future 
work, 494. His contest with 
Judaizing teachers, and re- 
lief of Jewish Christians, 
494. Returns to Antioch, 



PAUL. 

494. End of his second mis 
sionary journey, 495. The 
visit of Galatians ii., 495, 
496. Extent and duration 
of his third missionary 
journey, 500. His con- 
stant conflict with the Ju- 
daizers, 501, 502. Its com- 
mencement in the churches 
of Galatia, 502. His Epistle 
to the Galatians refuting 
the Judaizing heresy, 592 
His dealing with the twelve 
disciples who knew only the 
baptism of John, 504, 
Preaches in the synagogue 
at Ephesus, 504, His rejec- 
tion and withdrawal, 505. 
Preaches in the school of 
Tyratmus, 506. His mira- 
cles, 506. His conflict with 
the magical arts, 506. Pre- 
pares to leave Ephesus, 507. 
Change in his plan owing to 
news from Corinth, 508, 509. 
His first Epistle to the Co- 
rinthians, 509,510. Its date 
and place, 512. His rela- 
tions with Apollos, 513. 
Question of a former Epistle 
and of an intermediate visit 
to Corinth, 513. Contents 
and spirit of his First Epistle 
to the Corinthians, 516-51S. 
Sequel of his stay at Ephe- 
sus, 519, 520. Sets out for 
Macedonia, 521. His labors 
at Troas, 522. His disap- 
pointment at not meeting 
Titus there, 520. Goes to 
Philippi and meets Titus, 
522. His Second Epistle to 
the Corinthians, 523. Its 
relation to the missions of 
Timothy and Titus, 523. 
Question of an intermediate 
epistle, 524. Character and 
contents of the Second Epis- 
tle, 525-530. Opposition to 
him in the Corinthian 
church, 527. His labors in 
Macedonia and Illyricum, 
530. His arrival at Corinth, 
530. His epistle to the Ro- 
mans, 530-536. His view 
toward the West, 531. His 
journey through Macedonia 
and voyage from Philippi 
after the Passover, 536. His 
week at Troas and farewell 
Sunday, 536. Restores Eu- 
tychus to life, 537. His voy- 
age to Miletus, 537. His 
discourse to the Ephesian 
elders, 537. His voyage to 
Patara and then to Phoe- 
nicia, 538. His week at 
Tyre, and another Sunday 
farewell, 53S, 539. Takes] 



up his abode at Csesarea with 
Philip the deacon, 539. His 
journey to Jerusalem, 540. 
His reception by the church- 
es, 538. Dangers from the 
Judaizers, 540. Joins four 
Nazarites in their vow, 541. 
Assaulted in the Temple and 
rescued by the tribune Lys- 
ias, 542. His defenses to the 
people and before the Sanhe- 
drim, 543-547. The plot 
against his life, 54S. Sent 
to Ca?sarea, 54S. His de- 
fense before Felix and im- 
prisonment at Cresarea, 549^ 
551. Results of his impris- 
onment, 553. His hearing 
before Festus, 554. Appeals 
to Caesar, 555. His defense 
before Agrippa, 557-559. 
The decision to send him to 
Rome, 559. His voyage and 
shipwreck, minute truthful- 
ness of the narrative of, 560. 
Embarks under the charge 
of Julius, 561. Lands at 
Sidon, 562. His voyage to 
Myra and change of ship, 
562. From Cnidus into the 
open sea, under the lee of 
Crete, 563. Arrival at Fair 
Havens, 563. His unheeded 
warning, 563. Ship caught 
in a typhoon, 564. Prepara- 
tions against the storm, 565, 
566. Und ergirding tl i e ship, 
565. The ship drifts on the 
starboard tack, 566. Her 
course and rate, 567. Suf- 
ferings during the drift, 567. 
Vision in the night, 570. 
Promise of escape, 570. 
Signs of land, 571. Paul's 
last encouragement, 572. 
Position of the ship in St. 
Paul's Bay, 574. Tt e ship- 
wreck and escape, 575. 
Paul's former shipwrecks, 
576. His use of nautical 
images. 576. His stay at 
Malta, 576-578. Voyage to 
Syracuse, Rhegium, and 
Puteoli, 578. Journey by 
land to Rome, 580. Met by 
Christians at Appii Forum 
and the Three Taverns, 5S0. 
Delivered to Burrus, 5S0. 
His condition as a prisoner 
in the Prastorium, 581. Hi3 
two conferences with the 
Jews, 582. Preaches to the 
Gentiles, 5S2. His two years' 
imprisonment at Rome and 
cause for the delay of his 
trial, 5S4. His labors and 
converts, 584, 5S5. His Epis- 
tles written at Rome, 5S6. 
His severe suffering in his 



Index. 



775 



imprisonment, 5S7. His 
Epistle to the Colossian: 
5S7-590. His Epistle to 
Philemon, 530. His teach 
ing concerning slavery, 591 
His Epistle to the Ephesians, 
503. His Epfetle to the 
Philippians, 593, 594. Hi 
prospects at this time, 594, 
595. His probable acquittal 
and release, 59G. The rela- 
tion of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews to his first impris- 
onment at Rome, 597-601. 
Purposed visit to Jerusalem, 
601. His movements after 
leaving Rome, 609. Sails 
for Jerusalem, 610. Visits 
Colossae and Ephesus, 610, 
611. His labors at Ephesus, 
611. His Epistles to Tim- 
othy and Titus, 610-0 IS. 
Visits Corinth and winters 
at Nicopolis, 618. Further 
movements of, 621. Tra- 
dition of his journey to 1 
Spain, 622, 623. The last 
stage of his course, 623. 
Probably arrested at Ephe- 
sus, 624. Indications of his 
route to Rome as a prisoner, 
626. Treated as a felon, 62l3. 
His first hearing and deliver- 
ance from the lion, 627, 628. 
His loneliness, 628. Motives 
of the urgent invitation to 
Timothy, 629. His pros- 
pects of martyrdom, 629. 
Beheaded, 631. Discussion 
of the date, 631, 632. His 
personal appearance and 
character, 633. Early at- 
tacks on him, 634. Author- 
ities for the life of, 653. 
Conversion of (see Saul of 
Tarsus). Harmony of Peter 
and, 637-639. Epistles of, 
comparison of them with the 
Acts, 402. Versatility of the 
Apo3 tie's mind shown in the, 
490. The Fourteen Epistles 
of, their order, 711. 

Paul's, St., Bay, 574. 

Pella, becomes the seat of 
the "Church of Jerusalem," 
129. The seat of the Church 
of Jerusalem for a time, 648. 

Pentateuch, allegoric exposi- 
tion of the, by Aristobulus, 
147. Described by Aris- 
tobulus as the source of 
Greek philosophy, 147. 
The, when translated, 152. 
The Samaritan, 153. Ori- 
gin of, 155. 

Pentecost, the Day of, 3S0- 
383. 3000 converts on, 1 
383. ) 

Peter, final call of, 235. Ileal-) 



ing of his wife's mother 
238. The faith of, 201. At. 
tempts to walk upon the 
water, 272. His confession, 
2T3. His full confession of 
the Christ, 276, 277. Con- 
troversy about his position 
. in the Church, 277. His re- 
monstrance when Christ re- 
veals the mystery of his 
death and resurrection, 277. 
Keleased by a miracle from 
his difficulty about the trib- 
ute-money, 279. Sent to 
prepare the last supper, 315. 
His presence at it, 316. 
Christ's prediction concern- 
ing his denial of him, 317. 
Charged by Christ to watch 
in the garden, 31S,319. Re- 
buked by Christ when he 
cuts off tho ear of the high- 
priest's servant, 320. Re- 
mains when the other disci- 
ples flee, 320. His denial of 
Christ, 32 1. His visit to the 
sepulchre, 350. Christ's ap- 
pearance to him, 352. His 
avowal of love to Christ, 

354. Christ's command to 
him and prediction of his 
martyrdom, 354 One of 
the " pillars" of the Church, 

355. His office in the 
Church, 3S0. His sermon 
on the Day of Pentecost, 
3S3. His second discourse, 
3S5. His healing the lame 
man, 334. With John be- 
fore the Sanhedrim, 3S5. 
Proclaims the deceit of An- 
anias and Sapphira, 356. 
His boldness at his second 
appearance before the San- 
hedrim, 387. He and John' 
confer on the converted Sa- 
maritans the gift of the Holy 
Ghost, 397. His relations to 
St. Paul, 410,417. His mis- 
sion to the Gentiles, 418. He 
heals iEneas and converts 
the people of Lydda, 426. 
Raises Dorcas and makes 
converts at Joppa, 427. His 
mission to Cornelius, 428. 
Receives the first Gentile 
converts into the Church, 
42S. Nature of this tran- 
saction, 429. His deliver- 
ance from "prison, 431, 432. 
At the conferences at Jeru- 
salem about the Judaizing 
spirit in the Church, 451. 
Speech of, in the Church at 
Jerusalem, 451-453. His 
subsequent reproof by St. 
Paul, 455. Whether at Cor- 
inth, 528. His association 
with John, 658. Associated 



PUAIUSEEB. 

by tradition with St. Paul 
in martyrdom, 634. Review 
of his life, 634. His last ap- 
pearance in the Acts, 635. 
His probable occupation, 
635. His first Epistle writ- 
ten from Babylon, 636. His 
intercourse with Paul, 637, 
Designed harmony of the 
Epistle with Paul's teach- 
ing, 63S. Pauline style of 
the Epistle accounted for, 
639. Discussion of the tra« 
diticn of St. Peter's episco- 
pate at Rome, 640-642. His 
own testimony to the true 
Rock and spiritual Stones 
of the Church, 642. 

Peter, First Epistle of, its au- 
thenticity, 715. 

— — , Second Epistle of, its au- 
thenticity, 7 15. 

Peraea, Christ's progress 
through, 299. Extent of, 
under Herod, SI. Reduced 
by the Romans, 127. 

Perga in Pamphylia, the voy- 
age of Paul and Barnabas to, 
440, 441. Paul and Barna- 
bas at, 447. 

Persian dominion, 14. 

Petilius Cerealis, Samaritans 
surrender to, 127. 

Petronius P., prefect of Syria, 
109, 114. 

Pharisees and chief priests set 
a watch over the tomb of 
Christ, 337. 

and Sadducees, alliance 

between the, 275. Jealousy 
between, 3SS. Their differ- 
ence sunk in common hatred 
against the Christians, 408. 

and Herodians, the, seek 

to entrap Christ, 308. 

, the, 31. Under John 

Hyrcanus and his succes- 
sors, 51, 52. Their power on 
the death of Alexander Jan- 
na?us, 64. Defeated by Aris- 
tobulus II., 65. Under Her- 
od, 84. At the time of Her- 
od, 91. Their union with 
the Herodians, 93. Name 
and origin of, 165. Doctrines 
of, 165. Their belief in an 
oral Law, 165. Their laws 
and regulations, 166, 167. 
Their belief in a future state, 
16S. Their spirit of prose- 
lytism, 168. Denounced by 
John the Baptist, 201. Re- 
ject him, 201. Prepare to 
attack Jesus, 224. Come to 
watch Jesus, 241. Charge 
the disciples with Sabbath- 
breaking, 253, 254. Plot 
with the Herodians against 
Christ, 255. Christ's con- 



776 



Index. 



troversy with, when they 
charge him with casting out 
devils by the power of Beel- 
zebub, 268. Christ's en- 
counter with, who ask for a 
sign, 275. Leaven of the, 
276. Christ's controversy 
with the, 292. The blind 
man healed by Jesus brought 
before them, 294. Their 

, blindness in sin, 295. Hold 
a council concerning Jesus, 
298. Christ's rebuke of the, 
when thev question his au- 
thority, 308. Their share in 
resisting Christianity, 391. 
"Working among them of 
the conviction of the truth 
of Christ's Messiahship, 407. 
St. Paul's appeal to the, 547. 

Phasael, son of Antipater, 
made governor of Jerusalem, 
69. Puts down revolt of 
Jews at Jerusalem, 70. 
Made tetrarch, 71. Death 
of, 71. 

Phaselus, tower of, SG. 

Phenice (see Phoenix). 

Pheroras, son of Antipater, 
69. Government entrusted 
to him by Herod, SO. Tc- 
trarchy of, 87. Conspires 
against Herod's life, S9. His 
death, 89. 

Philemon, character of, 590. 
Epistle to, written at Rome, 
5S6. Its teaching concern- 
ing slavery, 591. 

Philetus, leader of a sect, 
612. Teaches that "the 
resurrection is passed al- 
ready," 614. St. Paul's men- 
tion of, 617. 

Philip, call of, 209. His con- 
fession of Christ, 209. Af- 
fection of, 261. One of the 
seven deacons, 390. Also 
called " Philip the Evan- 
gelist," 390. His conver- 
sion of the Samaritans, 397 ; 
of the Ethiopian eunuch, 
897, 398, His mission to 
the cities of the Philistine 
plain, 398. Fixes his abode 
at Csesarea, 398. His daugh- 
ters, 39S. Paul takes up 
his abode with, 539. Hi? 

- daughters prophesy, 539, 
691. 

, the Apostle, 676. His 

connection with Andrew, 
677, 678. His desire to see 
the Father, 678. As deacon 
and evangelist, 691. 

•, governor of Jerusalem, 

26. Claims the guardian- 
ship of Antiochus V., 39. 

V., of Macedon, his league 

with Antiochus, 23. 



Philip, son of Herod and Cleo- 
patra, tetrarch of Ituraea, 
98. 

Philippi, after the Passover, 
536. Battle of, 70. Chris- 
tians at, minister to the 
wants of Paul at Rome, 
5S5. Conversion of the 
jailer at, 469. Jewish ora- 
tory at, 465, 466. Paul at, 
465-470. Paul meets Ti- 
tus at, 522. Paul's voyage 
from, 536. The earthquake 
at, 46S. 

Philippians, Church of the, 
470. Epistle to the, 593. 
Written at Rome, 586. 

Philistine country, overrun 
by Judas Maccabseus, 39. 

Philo, writings of, 111-113. 

Pliilocrates, letter addressed 
to, giving an account of 
the origin of the Septuagint, 
152. 

Phocylides, poem of, 147. 

Phoebe, deaconess of the 
Church at Cenchrese, 493. 
Carries St. Paul's Epistle to 
Rome, 536. 

Phoenicia, sufferings of, by the 
wars of the successors of 
Alexander, 20. 

Phcenix, port of, 564. 

Phrygia, journey of Paul 
through, 462. 

Phygellus, desertion of the 
Asiatic Christians led by, 
624. 

Pilate, his connection with 
Antipater, SI. 

, Pontius, Jesus brought 

before, 324. Sends him to 
Herod Antipas, 325. Ap- 
peals to the generosity of 
the people, 325. Yields up 
Jesus, 326. Makes one more 
effort to save him, 326, 327. 
His final sentence, 327. 
Writes the title of Christ to 
mortify the Jews, 331. His 
care to ascertain the truth 
of Christ's death, 336. Al- 
lows Joseph to take Christ's 
body, 336. (See Pilatus.) 

Pilatus, Pontius, procurator 
of Judaea, 107. His descent, 
107. Origin of name of, 10S. 
Riots in his time, 10S. Re- 
called to Romf, 109. Ban- 
ished, 109. 

Pisidia, St. Paul directs his 
course to, 440. 

Polemon, king of Pontus, US. 

Politarchs, Jason before the, 
471. 

Pollio, spared by Herod, 78. 

Pompey, GG. Appears at Da- 
mascus, 60. Enters Jerusa- 
lem, 67, 68. 



PUDENS. 

Poor, condition of the, in thg 
Primitive Church, 385. 

Poppsea, Nero's mistress, 584. 
Married to Nero, 595. 

.Portitores (see Publicans). 

Posea (see Acetum). 

Posidonium, the, 482. 

Pozzuoli (see Puteoli). 

Praetorian Camp at Rome, the, 
581. 

Praetorium, Jesus led to the; 
324. Paul, a prisoner in the, 
5S0, 5S1. 

Prayer, in the Primitive 
Church, 384. And fasting, 
power of, 279. 

Precipitation, scene of the, 
attempted, 197. 

Presbyter (see Elder). 

Priest (see Elder). 

Priests, Chief, and Scribes, 
demand of Christ the au- 
thority by which he had 
acted, 30S. 

Priscilla (see Aquila). 

Prochorus, one of the seven 
deacons, 390, 691. 

Procurator, description of of- 
fice of a, 106. 

Proselytes of Righteousness, 
150. 

of the Covenant (see Pros- 
elytes of Righteousness). 

of the Gate, 149, 399. 

, the, 148-150. 

Proseuchae, the, statues of Ca. 
ligula set up in, 111. 

, the, 159. 

Protomartyr of the Christian 
Church, Stephen, the, 391. 

Psammetichus, Egyptian king, 
398. 

Psephinus, tower of, 86. 

Ptolemy II., Philadelphns, 
Septuagint ascribed partly 
to literary tastes of, 21. 

III., Euergetes, Onias II. 

refuses to pay tribute to, 22. 

IV., Philopator, his war 

with Antiochus the Great, 
22. His persecution of the 
Jews, 23. 

V., Epiphanes, marries 

Cleopatra, 23. 

VI., Philometor, 25. 

Lathyrus, ravages Judaea, 

63. 

Macron, governor of 

Coelesyria, 36. 

, .^on of Abubus, 49. 

takes Jerusalem, 19. 

Publicans (portitores), op- 
pression of the, 199. Their 
belief in John the Baptist, 
201. The, account of, 215, 
216. 

Publius, the primate of Me- 
lita, 577, 57S. 

Pudens, conversion of, G?.G. 



Index. 



777 



Supposed British origin of, 
627. 
Puteoli, Paul's voyage to, 57S. 
Jewish residents at, 580. 
Christians at, 5S0. 



Q. 

Quadratus, Unmridius, prefect 

of Syria, 551. 
Quirinus, prefect of Syria, 

106. 



B. 

Rab, rabbi, rabban, 175. 

11 Rabban," title of, 388. 

Rabbi of the synagogue, 161. 

Ragaba, siege of, 04. 

Raphia, battle of, 22. 

Redemption, the beginning 
of the Covenant of, 179. 

Repentance, doctrine of, 
preached by John, 231. 

Resurrection and the Life, 
Christ proclaims that he is 
the, when he raises Lazarus 
from the dead, 298. Christ's 
answer to the Sadducees con- 
cerning the, 309. Christ's 
prophecy of his, 221. 
Christ's, to be the great 
sign, 275. Denial of the, 
heresy, of the, 617. Influ- 
ence of the doctrine on the 
Jews after the capture of 
Jerusalem, 171. Jewish be- 
lief in the, 39. Of Christ, 
chief mission of the Apostles 
to bear witness to the, 260. 
Time of the, 348, 349. 

■ , of the dead, denial of, 

by the Sadducees, 170. 
The account of, by St. 
Matthew, 348. Controversy 
between Paul and his 
accusers turned upon, 547, 
555. 

Revelation of St. John, the, 
meaning of the word, 719. 
Its canonical authority and 
authorship, 719, 720. Time 
and place at which it was 
written, 720. Its contents, 
720-722. Its interpretation, 
723. Divisions of its expos- 

i itors into Historical, Prseter- 
ist, and Futurist, 723, 724. 

Rhamnus, the, 327. 

Rhegium, Paul's voyage to, 

. 578. 

Robes of the high-priest, Jews 
again permitted to have 
custody of, 109. Roman 
attempt to regain possession 
of, 120. 

Rrck, Christ as the, 277. 

PI h 2 



SABINUS. 

Rockman, title of the, 666. 
Roman Church, Judaism in 

the, 533. Gentile element 

in the, 533. 



SAMAKIi. 

marches to Jerusalem after 
the death of Herod, 101. 
His exactions, 101, 102. 
Sadduc (see Zadok). 



Roman influence in the tem- Sadducees, founded by Zadok, 

pie of Herod, 94. 20. 
Romans drawn toward Ju- , the, 31. Under John 



daism and afterward to- 
ward Christianity, 14S, 149. 
Their feelings toward the 
Jews under Caligula, 112, 
113. Epistle to the, 530-535. 
Relation of the Epistle to 
the constitution of the Ro- 
man Church, 533. Its mixed 
Jewish and Gentile charac- 
ter, 533. The strong Greek 
element, 533. Spirit and 
contents of the Epistle, 534- 
536. 

Rome, Christianity at, 456. 
Evidence of St. Peter's visit 
to and crucifixion at, 641. 
St. Peter not the founder of 
the Church of, 642. First 
appearance of name of, in 
Jewish histoiy, 41. Inter- 
vention of, between Hyrca- 
nus and Aristobulus," 66. 
Jewish alliance with, 46. 
Jewish settlements in, 14S. 
League of, with the Jews, 
41. Paul's arrival at, 5S0. 
His two years' imprisonment 
at, 584. Progress of the 
Gospel at, during Paul's im- 
prisonment, 5S5. The burn- 
ing of, 619. Persecution of 
Christians at, by Nero, 620. 
War of, against the Jews, 
126. 
Rpsetta Stone," 24. 

Rufus, son of Simon, 329. 



s. 

Sabbath after the Crucifixion, 
preparation for the, 329. 
Grief of the disciples on 
the, 337. Christ asserts his 
supremacy over the, 245, 
246. Christ heals the man 
blind from his birth on the, 
294. Healing of the rosin 
with the withered hand on 
the, 255. Plucking of the 
ears of corn on the, 253, 
254. 

, New, institution of the, 

315. 

" Sabbath, the second-first," 
question concerning the 
phrase, 254. 

Sabinus, procurator of Judaea. 
1C6. 

, procurator of Syria, j 



Hyrcanus and his succes- 
sors, 51. Their union with 
the Herodians, 93. Name 
and origin of, 168, 169. 
Their doctrines, 170. De- 
nial of an oral law, 170. 
Denial of a resurrection of 
the dead, 170. Denial of 
angels, 170. Belief in the 
freedom of the will, 170. 
Supposed rejection of all 
Scripture except the Penta- 
teuch, 171. Their disap- 
pearance, 171. Denounced 
by John the Baptist, 201. 
Christ's encounter with the, 
who ask for a sign, 275. 
The leaven of the, 275. At- 
tempt of the, to entrap 
Christ, 30S. Seize Peter 
and John, and carry them to 
prison, 384. Throw all the 
Apostles into prison, 387. 
And Pharisees, jealousy be- 
tween, 3S8. At first take 
the lead in resisting Chris- 
tianity, 391. 

Salamis in Cyprus, Barnabas 
and Saul sail for, 438. Situ- 
ation of, 439. 

Salmone, headland of Crete, 
563. 

Salmonetta, Paul's ship anch- 
ors off, 574. 

Salome, daughter of Antipater, 
f.9. Accuses Mariamne, SO, 
82. Prejudices Herod against 
his sons, 87. Provided for 
by her brother Herod's will, 
99. Follows Archelaus to 
Rome, 101. Pleads the cause 
of Antipas, 101. 

, wife of Herod Philip II., 

105. 

, daughter of Herodias, 

dances before the king, 2C5. 
Demands the head of John 
the Baptist, 265. 

, her qualities transmitted 

to her son John, 656. 

Samaria, Christ's journey 
through and rejection in, 
2S9. City of, destroyed, 50. 
Description of, by Josephus, 
144. Destroyed by Alex- 
ander, 142. Destruction of, 
17. Extent of, under Herod, 
81. Overrun by Judas 
Maccabaeus, 39. Restora- 
tion of, by Herod, S3. Sue- 
cess of Christ's ministry in, 
243. The woman of, 142. 






778 



Index. 






BAMAKITAN. 

Samaritan woman, the, at 
Jacob's well, 225. 

Samaritans, rebellion of, 17 
Persecuted by Antioclms 
IV., 26, 27. Excluded from 
the Temple, 107. On the 
return from the Captivity, 
140-144. Their origin, 140, 
141. Their character, 141. 
Their opposition to the 
Jews, 141. Their observ- 
ance of the Law, 142. 
Their claim to partake of 
Jewish blood, 142. Christ's 
words confirmatory of the 
view that they were not 
Jews, 143. Their state at 
the time of Christ, 143. 
Converted by Philip, 390, 
396. Peter and John preach 
to the, 397. Cuthsean, the, 
143,144. 

Sameas, spared by Herod, 70, 
78. 

Sampsigoranus, king of Emesa, 
118. 

Sanhedrim, Alexandrian, 

chiefs of the, summoned 
before Elaccus, 111. Herod 
cited to appear before the, 
70. Jesus arraigned be- 
fore the, 322. Paul before 
the, 541, 545. Peter and 
John before the, 385. Ste- 
phen before, the, 391-393. 
Apostles before the, 3S7. 
The, origin of, 73, 74. The, 
taken to Jabneh, 251. P.e-< 
moved to Sepphoris, 251. 
Afterward to Tiberias, 251. 
The, whether possessing the 
power of inflicting death at 
the time of St. Stephen's 
martyrdom, 393. 

il , Great," 73. 

Sapha, Alexander and Jaddua 
at, 16. 

Sapphira {see Ananias). 

tl Satan, delivering to," 652. 

Satan's temptation of Christ, 
204-207. 

Satui'ninus, Roman governor 
of Syria, 88. 

Saul of Tarsus, his share in 
the martyrdom of Stephen, 
393. His conversion, 394. 
Date of, 396. His previous 
persecution of the Church, 
396. 

Scaurus, lieutenant of Pom- 
pey, 66. 

Scene of our Lord's ministry, 
248, 249. 

Sceva of Ephesus, 162. Sons 
of, their exorcism defeated, 
506. 

Scopas, Jews ill-treated by, 
23. 

•Scourging before Crucifixion, 
344. 



8ICAEII. 

Scribes, the, 173-176. 

" , words of the," 174. 

Sebaste (see Samaria.) 

Sects, Jewish, origin and name 
of the, 164. Three chief, 
165. 

Secundus of the Thessaloni- 
ans, goes to Troas, 536. 

Seleucia, the port of Antioch, 
437, 43S. 

Seleucidse, kingdom of the, 
reached climax of its power, 
22. 

Seleucus Nicator, founder of 
Antioch in Pisidia, 442. 
Transplants Jews from Bab- 
ylonia, 145. 

IV., Philopator, succeeds 

his father, 23. 

Senate of elders, convened 
with the Sanhedrim to judge 
the Apostles, 3S7. 

Seneca, decline of his influ- 
ence, 595. 

Sentius Saturninus, governor 
of Syria at the time of the 
birth of Christ, 195. 

Septuagint, the, 21. Origin of, 
152. Its estimation by the 
Hellenistic Jews, 152. Its 
wide dispersion, 153. Its 
influence in the spread of 
the Gospel, 153. 

Septuagint translation, effect 
of the, 140. 

Sepulchre of Christ, the, 336. 
The watch and seal upon 
the, 337. 

Sepulchre, holy, site of the, 
345. Visit of the women 
to the, 349. Visit of Peter 
and John to the, 350. 

Serapeum, library deposited 
in the, 146. 

Serapis, worship of, 146. 

Sergius Paulus, conversion of, 
439. 

Sermon on the Mount, date 
of the, according to St. Mat- 
thew, 241. Preliminary 
questions concerning the, 
256. Time and scene of, 
260. Precepts of, 262. Ef- 
fect of the discoui'se, 264. 

Seron defeated by Judas Mac- 
cabseus, 37. 

Severus, Julius, his command 
of the army in Judaea, 135. 

Shammai, school of, 175. 

Sharon, the plain of, 426. 

Shechem or Sychar, 144. The 
oak of, 142. 

Sheliach, office of the, 161. 

Shemaiah, Jewish rabbi, 79. 

Shepherd, Good, parable of 
the, 295. 

Shepherds of the Christian 
Church, 162. 

Sicarii, appearance of the, 121. 
Assist the insurgents at 



SIMON. 

Jerusalem, at the time of 
Cestius Gallus, 125. Theit 
murder of Ananias, 546. 

Sidon, Paul at, 562. 

Sidonians, revolt of, 15. 

Silas, sent to Antioch, 456. 
Accompanies St. Paul on 
his second missionary jour= 
ney, 459. Left at Bercea, 
474. Rejoins Paul at Cor- 
inth, 4S1, 4S5. His arrival 
gives a new impulse to St. 
Paul, 4S6. His aid owned 
by Paul, 4S7. The associate 
of Peter, 500. With Paul 
at Philippi (.see Paul). 

Silo, general, treachery of, 72. 

Si loam, pool of, 293. 

Silvanus, witli Peter at Bab- 
ylon, 037. His influence, 
639. 

Silwtin (see Siloam). 

■ Birket (see Siloam). 

Simeon, surnamed Niger, 148. 
Proclaims Jesus as the 
Christ of God, 185. His 
prophecy, 186. Song of, 
1S6. 

Simon, a Cyrenian, said to 
have been the bearer of the 
cross of Christ, 329. 

Bar-Gioras, 126. Heads 

a party at Jerusalem, 128. 
His defense of Jerusalem, 
129-132. His flight, 134. 

Bar-Jonah, his friendship 

with St. John, 657. 

, coins of, 57. 

, high-priest under Her- 
od, 85. 

II., high-priest, 22. 

, made high-priest, 115. 

Magus, the magician, 

397. His baptism, 397. Of- 
fers money to the Apostles, 
397. History of, 399-400. 
His attempt to combino 
Christianity with Gnosti- 
cism, 397, 400. 

, son of Mattathias, 38. 

Sent into Galilee, 38. Aids 
his brother Jonathan, 43. 
Eouts the Syrians, 45. Mada 
leader when Jonathan was 
taken prisoner, 46. Becomes 
high-priest, 46. Memorial 
of his services, 47. Siain, 49. 

, surnamed Peter, brought 

by Andrew to Jesus, 208. 

I., the Just, high-priest, 

20. Saying ascribed to, 173. 

— — the leper, the supper in 
the house of, 300. 

the Pharisee, Christ in 

the house of, 266. 

the tanner, St. Peter'* 

abode in the house of, 427. 

, the treasurer of the Teiu* 

pie, 23, 24. 

the Zealot, or the C>* 



Index. 



779 



naanite, G75. Identity of 
the epithets, 675. 

Simon, whether brother of the 
Lord, 2S1, 282. 

So: : njus, officer of Herod, SO. 

Solomon, the Wisdom of, book 
of, 156. 

Son of Man, the coming of the, 
046. 

Sopater of Bercea, goes to 
Troas, 536. 

, son of Pyrrhus, 475. 

Sosius, 72. 

Sosthenes, ruler of the Syna- 
gogue at Corinth, 401. 

Sower, parable of the, 2GS. 

Spain, Paul's project of a visit 
to, 596. Tradition of Paul's 
journey to, 622, 623. 

Star, appearance of the, at 
Christ's advent, 187, 18S. 

Stephanas, baptism of, 48S. 
With others, carries the 
Epistle to the Corinthians, 
512, 513. 

Stephen, the martyr, similar- 
ity of his words to those of 
Christ, 334. Made a deacon, 
300. His faith and miracles, 
391 . His success in the con- 
troversy with the Hellenistic 
Jews, 391. His defense be- 
fore the Sanhedrim, 391, 392. 
His martyrdom, 393. Scene 
of the, 393. Its effect on St. 
Paul, 394. Date of, 395, 396. 

, St., one of the Seven Dea- 
cons, 690. 

Stoa Basilica, the, of the Tem- 
ple, 95. 

Stoics, Paul encountered bv 
the, 476. 

Straight, the street called, 413, 
417. 

Straton, tower of, site of, 83. 

Struthius, the pool, 131. 

"Sufferings of Christ," pre- 
diction of the, 277, 278. 

Supper, the Last, 314-318. Its 
connection with the Pass- 
over, 341, 342. 

_— , the Lord's, Christ's in- 
stitution of, 318. Institution 
of, not mentioned by St. 
John, 315. Irregularities in 
the celebration of, at Cor- 
inth, 516. Its celebration 
in the Primitive Church, 
383, 384. 

» — , the Paschal, account of, 
341-343. Its connection 
with the Last Supper of our 
Lord , 342. Date of the, 315. 

Susanna, 268. 

Sychar, Christ's disciples at, 
226. (See Shechem.) 

Synagogue at Nazareth, 
Christ's teaching in the, 
190. 

, New, office of, 20. 



Synagogue, the Great, men of, 
173. Simon, last survivor 
of, 20. 

Synagogues, Christ teaches in 
the, 232. History of the, 
159, 160. Their influence, 
159. Structure, 160. Inter- 
nal arrangement, 160, 161. 
Officers of, 161, 162. Wor- 



190. Jews attempt to re- 
build the, under Hadrian, 
135. Of Solomon, Apostle3 
assemble daily in the portico 
of the, 387. Polluted by Sa- 
maritans, 107. Restored by 
Herod, 85, 86. Still the cen- 
tre of Judaism after the Dis- 
persion, 145. 



ship, 162, 163. Judicial func- Temple of Herod, 94, 95. 
tions, 163, 164. Remains of, , Jewish, built in Egypt, 



n Galilee, 251. 

Syiacuse, Paul's voyage to, 
578. 

Syria, governors of,.listof, 139. 
Kings of the Greek kingdom 
of, table of, 32. Multitudes 
drawn by the fame of 
Christ's teaching and mira- 
cles from, 239. Paul and 



by Onias, 40. Site of, 40. 

on Mount Gerizim, seized 

by Athenaeus, and dedicated 
to Zeus Xenius, 27. Rebuilt 
by Herod, 86. 

Temptation of Christ, the, 203- 
206. Scene of, 204. 

Terentius Rufus left at Jeru- 
salem to carry out the work 



Silas visit, 459. Relations of, of demolition, 134. 

toward Egypt at the time of Tertullus cornea to Osesarea, to 



Ptolemy VI., 25. Under 

Cassius, 70. Revolt o f ', 71. 
Svrian provinces, Jews of the, 

"145. 
Syrians, defeated by Judas 

Maccabasus, 36. 
Syro - Phoenician woman, 

prayer of the, 274. 
Syrtis, quicksands of the Great, 

556. 



T. 

Tabitha (see Dorcas). 

Tabor, Mount, description of, 
286, 2S7. Whether the scene 
of the Transfiguration, 2S7. 

Tacitus, his account of the per- 
secution of the Christians by 
Nero, 620. His historical 
testimony to the death of 
Christ, at the time and man- 
ner related in the Gospels, 
620. 

Talmud, the, 151. Account of 
the proselytes in the, 150. 

Tantura, 4S. 

Targums, the, 151. 

Tarsus, birthplace of St. Paul, 
404. 

Taurus, St. Paul's passage of 
the, 440, 441. 

Tekoah, wilderness of, 43. 

Tell Hum (.see Capernaum, site 
of). 

Temple at Jerusalem, seized 
by Athenaeus, and dedicated 
to Zeus Olympius, 27. At- 
tempt of Jews, under Julian, 
to build a, 138. Burning of 
the, 133. Christ's first 
cleansing of the, 220 ; second 
cleansing, 306. Cleansed by 
Judas Maccabasus, 37. Com- 
pletion of the, 620. Connec- 
tion of Agrippa with the, 87. 
Finding of Christ in the, I 



accuse Paul before Felix, 
549. 

Testament, the New, the stand- 
ard of the Christian faith, 
699. Its relation to the Old, 
699. Its language, Greek, 
699, 700. 

— , Canon of the, history of 
the, 700. Contents and ar- 
rangement of the, 700. His- 
torical Books of the, 700. 

Thaddaaus (see Jude). 

Thaliarchus, the, at the mar- 
iage feast at Cana, 213. 

Thasos, gold-mines of, 465. 

Theologus, title of, 662. 

Theophilus, made high-priest, 
109. 

— , the, to whom the Gospel 
of St. Luke is addressed, 706. 

Thessalonian Church, restless- 
ness in the, 473. 

Thessalonians, First Epistle to 
the, written at Corinth, 488. 

, Second Epistle to the, 

written at Corinth, 4S9. 

, the two Epistles to the, 

472. 

Thessalonica, Roman capital 
of Macedonia, Paul at, 471. 
Synagogue of the Jews at, 
471. 

Theudas, revolt of, 3S8. 

Thieves, the two, led with Je- 
sus to death, 330. Their 
conduct on the cross, 332. 

Thomas, a missionary from the 
Nestorians, 683. 

, with the assembled Apos- 
tles at the second appearance 
of Jesus to them, 353. Hi3 
recognition of the Lord's res- 
urrection as' a proof of his 
divinity, 353, 354. Is present 
at Christ'3 third appearance 
to the Apostles, 354. 
— , St., the Apostle, 681. 
His character, 681, 682, 



780 



Index. 



Traditions concerning him, 
682, 6S3. 

" Thomas, St., Christians of," 
CS2. 

Thorns, the crown of, 326. 

Thrace, heathen worship in, 
467. 

Three Taverns, the, Christians 
meet Paul at, 5S0. 

Thyatira, city of, 466. 

Tiberias, city of, founded, 105. 
Sea of (see Galilee). 

Tiberius, accession of, 107. 
Death of, 109. Position of 
the Christian Church at the 
death of, 399. 

Tigellinus, 505. 

Tigranes, 66. 

Timon, one of the seven dea- 
cons, 390, 691. 

Timotheus, defeated by Judas 
Maccabseus, 37. 

, goes to Troas, 536. 

Timothy, companion of St. 
Paul on his second mission- 
ary journey, 459. His par- 
entage and youth, 4G0, 461. 
St. Paul's appeal to him, 461. 
His ordination and circum- 
cision, 461. Goes forth with 
Paul and Silas, 462. Left at 
Philippi, 470. Left at Bercea, 
474. Rejoins Paul at Cor- 
inth, 4S1, 4S4. His arrival 
gives a new impulse to St. 
Paul, 4S6. His aid owned 
by Paul, 4S7. With Paul on 
his third missionary journey, 
501. His mission to Mace- 
donia and Achaia, 507, 508. 
Rejoins Paul at Philippi, 523. 
His mission, 523-525. Joins 
Paul in his imprisonment at 
Rome, 585. Left as Paul's 
representative at Ephesus, 
611, 612. His last relations 
with St. Paul, 629. Life of, 
696-69S. His martyrdom, 
69S. 

. , First Epistle to, 608, 610, 

612-618. 

, Second Epistle to, 608, 

617, 61S. Its evidence as to 
the last stage of the Apostle's 
course, 623. Date of, 626. 

Titus, sent against the Jews, 
126. Besieges Jerusalem, 
129-134. 

- — ■ accompanies Paul and 
Barnabas to Jerusalem, 
450. With Paul on his 
third missionary journey 
501. Paul's disappointment 
at not meeting, at Troa 

521. His arrival at Philippi, 

522. His mission, 523, 524. 
Bearer of the Second Epistle 
to the Corinthians, 525. 
Left as Paul's representa. 
tive at Crete, 611. 



VAEUS. 

Titus, Epistle to, 60S, 610, 617. 

, life of, 692-696. 

Tobit, Book of, 155. 

Tomb, the three days in the, 
349. 

Tombs of the Prophets, the, 
339. 

Tongues, cloven, of fire, de- 
scent of the, 3S1. Gift of, 
at the conversion of Cor- 
nelius, 42S. The disciples 
speak with, 381. Effect on 
the people, 382. 

Trachonitis, under Herod, 81. 

Trajan, father of the emperor, 
127. 

Transfiguration, the, 278. 
Scene of, 27S, 2S6, 2S7. 

Trinity, Three Persons of the, 
revealed by Christ in their 
working for man's redemp- 
tion, 223. 

Tripoli (see Berenice). 

Troas, Alexandria, St. Paul 
sees at, the vision which 
calls him to Europe, 463 
404, 465. St, Paul's labors 
at, 521, 522. 

, Paul spends a week 

536. 

Trophimus, goes to Troas, 
536. Whether with Titus 
at Corinth, 525. 

Tryphon, claims the throne 
for Antiochus, 45. Kills 
Jonathan, 46. Usurpation 
of, 47, 48, 49. 

Tychicus, goes to Troas, 536. 
Companion of Paul in his 
imprisonment at Rome. 
586. Bearer of the Epistle 
to the Colossians, 590. His 
mission to the Colossians 
and Ephesians, 592. 

Tyrannus, the school of, Paul 
preaches in the, 505. 

Tyre, Paul at, 53S. 



u. 

Um Keis, ruins of, 269. In- 
habitants of, 269. 

Uncircumcision, the Gospel 
of the, 450. 

Urbanus, 148. 



Valerius Flaccus, procurator 
of Juda?a, his conduct to- 
ward the Jews in Alexan- 
dria, 111. Put to death, 112. 

Gratus, procurator of 

Judsea, 107. 

Varus, prefect of Syria, inter- 
feres between Sabiuius and 
the Jews, 101. Roman gov- 
ernor of Syria, 89. 



ZOROASTER. 

Veil of the Temple, rending 
of the, S34. 

Ventidius, legate of Anthony, 
72. 

Vespasian, conducts the war 
against the Jews, 126. Re- 
duces Galilee, 127. Made 
emperor, 127. 

Vespasianus, T. Flavius (see 
Vespasian). 

Vinegar, the, offered to Christ, 
321. 

Viri Galilsei, 340. 

Vitellius sends Pilate to Rome, 
109. Visits Jerusalem, 109. 

Volumnius, Roman governor 
of Syria, 8S. 

w. 

Water, Living, Christ the, 

291. 
Wedding garment, Parable of 

the, 30S. 
"Weeks, Feast of" (see Pen- 
tecost). 
Well, Jacob's, Christ at, 225. 

Site of, 225. 
Whitsunday (see Pentecost, 

Day of). 
Wicked husbandman, Parable 

of the, 308. 
Widow, mites of the, 311. 
Will, freedom ef the, belief of 

the Sadducees in the, 170, 

171. 
Word, St. John's doctrine of 

the, 179. 

z. 

Zacchaeus, conversion of, 300. 

Zacharias, priest in the Tem- 
ple, 179. Gabriel appears 
to him, ISO. His dumbness, 
180. Recovers his speech, 
182. 

Zadoc, name of, 169. 

Zadok, 173. Founder of the 
Sadducees, 20. 

Zadokites (see Sadducees). 

Zealots or fanatics in Jerusa- 
lem, 127, 128. Their re- 
sistance to the Romans, 
134. Received in Cyrene, 
147. The, 174. Simon, be- 
longing to the faction of the, 
675. 

Zebedee, cared for by his sons, 
235. 

Zechariah, his prophecy con- 
cerning the advent of the 
Messiah, 304. Prophecy of, 
concerning the thirty pieces 
of silver, 32S. 

Zenas, the lawyer, 619. 

Zion, Mount, Sanctuary on, 
50. 

Zoroaster, religion of, its hope 
of a great deliverer, 187. 



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